Forbes Features Spreedly's AI Shopping Survey

Spreedly was recently featured in Forbes, where Senior Contributor Sharon Edelson covered the findings from our latest consumer survey on AI and shopping. The results show that AI is changing how consumers discover, compare, and choose products, and that brand loyalty gets surprisingly fluid when AI can deliver real savings. Spreedly CEO Justin Benson also shares what these shifts mean for merchants as AI takes over more of the path to purchase.

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Spreedly’s survey results are in and the digital payments company has some interesting findings. The survey reveals AI is significantly reshaping consumer buying habits and brand loyalty. For example, 63% of Americans would consider letting AI choose their brands if it consistently saved them 20%.

“I wouldn’t read it as consumers no longer caring about getting what they want,” said Justin Benson, CEO of Spreedly. “What the data tells us is that brand loyalty becomes surprisingly fluid when AI can demonstrate real value.”

Nearly two-thirds would at least consider letting AI choose brands for them if it consistently saved them 20%. That means the agent could increasingly influence which brand ultimately wins the transaction.

“A lot of what we call brand loyalty is really habit, and AI agents don’t have habits, they have criteria,” Benson said. “Loyalty isn’t disappearing, it’s moving from the brand to the agent the consumer trusts.”

Gen Z is often a bellwether for consumer trends and where shopping behavior is headed. Among Gen Z respondents, 31% chose ChatGPT as their most trusted source for product research, ahead of Google, friends and family, online reviews and retailer websites. This is compared to just 12% for Google Search.

“What’s interesting isn’t simply that they’re using AI. They’re beginning to use it at a point in the shopping journey that has historically belonged to search engines, retailers and brands,” said Benson.

So, who controls the shopping journey now? Today, the consumer still controls the transaction, but AI is beginning to control more of the journey that leads to it. It can increasingly decide what gets discovered, compared and recommended, and eventually it may decide what gets purchased. That creates a much bigger strategic question for merchants: who owns the customer when an AI agent is making the decisions?

“AI may present three or four known brands to a consumer when researching, but the actual retailer that captures the sale could be different based on an agent recommendation versus previous consumer habits,” Benson said. “Conversely, many users describe getting a recommendation from a retailer but taking that recommendation to Amazon because it’s so much easier in terms of process. It’s still the consumer, but there will be changes driven by AI around brands, retailers, or both.”

There’s a pretty clear line between letting AI help make a decision and letting it actually spend your money. Sixty-four percent said they would not allow an AI shopping assistant to spend without their approval. Another 16% would allow it only for small purchases, while 20% would allow it to spend without approval.

There was similar hesitation around payment information. Only 19% said they would give an AI shopping assistant access to their payment information in exchange for a guaranteed lowest price, while 23% said maybe and 58% said no. Consumers seem ready to delegate some decisions to AI before they’re ready to give it control.

Why would retailers use Spreedly? “They would use us because they want to have independence and redundancy and not have all their eggs in one basket with one particular payment provider. The reason they want to have more than one is it can help them drive up success rates by using different providers in different scenarios, and it gives them a lot of leverage on their costs,” Benson said.

According to Benson, there is definitely a negative narrative around AI right now. “Consumers fear for their jobs and there’s push back against data centers. It’s also very comfortable and they’re using it on a daily basis particularly in the area of digital commerce. They’re using it to do research, to find solutions, which tends to then lead to products for them."

Benson noted that AI is touching every part of our society. “People are very unhappy,” he said. “People feel threatened by technology. They complain about it, but no one would go without their iPhone and no one would go without access to the Internet. We feel like AI is a subset of that. And then you’ll see in the data, particularly younger people are really replacing Google. Now, they go to ChatGPT to start doing research for things that they’re interested in buying.”

This article was originally published on Forbes.com on September 30, 2026, by Sharon Edelson.