AI Assistants Increasingly Part of Shopping Journeys

AI Assistants Increasingly Part of Shopping Journeys

AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, DeepSeek are quickly becoming part of shopping journeys.

Adobe has released research showing how UK consumers are using AI tools like ChatGPT, DeepSeek, and Google Gemini to help them shop smarter.

This combines data from two sources.

  1. A consumer survey of 2,000 Britishers (conducted in February) to understand attitudes, trust levels and specific tasks and use cases where AI tools are being used.
  2. Online browsing and transaction data from Adobe Analytics, revealing the behaviours of consumers that have visited retail, financial services and travel sites from using an AI service, compared with their behaviours when they visit the same sites from other traffic sources (such as search, direct traffic and online advertising) between August 2024 and February 2025.

79% of UK consumers consider themselves to either be experts on AI assistants or are confident enough in their understanding to be able to explain AI assistants to a friend. Understanding is especially strong among Gen-Z (89%) and Millennials (84%). 

Usage of AI assistants is at a similar level. 76% of consumers have used AI assistants at least once, with 27% using them regularly and 11% using them every day. Adobe Analytics recorded a 500% increase in AI sourced traffic to retail sites from UK consumers between October 2024 and February 2025. Since August 2024, traffic to retail sites from GenAI sources has increased by more than 30% every month. 

A third, meanwhile, now tap AI tools instead of traditional search engines, such as Google.

“As AI agents – which can complete tasks with greater autonomy – start to become widely available, UK consumers look set to jump in and start using them having built their confidence and trust using AI assistants like ChatGPT,” said Vivek Pandya, Lead Analyst at Adobe Digital Insights.  

“For businesses, seeing how much AI assistants are influencing the purchasing decisions of consumers underlines the importance of showing up favourably in AI searches and the huge potential of these services in bringing highly engaged, ready to spend consumers to their sites.”

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