March 20, 2026
Consumers Will Let AI Shop for Them, Just Don’t Touch the Card
Retailers have spent the past year racing to embed AI agents into the shopping journey. Walmart linked up with Google’s Gemini. Salesforce acquired an AI commerce platform. Brands are optimising their product data for AI discovery rather than search engines. The infrastructure for agentic commerce is being built at speed, but they haven’t caught up with the consumer yet.
New research from fulfilment provider Radial, based on two surveys of 1,000 consumers each, finds that 58% of people say they are open to placing an order through an AI assistant, yet only 6% have actually done it.
Consumers Want a Co-Pilot, Not Autopilot
The survey results are fairly unambiguous about how much freedom consumers are willing to hand over. When asked what kind of autonomy they would grant an AI agent, 34% said they would allow it to act only with their approval at each step. Another 23% want suggestions only, with no action taken on their behalf. A full 21% said they do not want AI acting for them at all.
Payment is where consumers draw the hardest line. Majorities require explicit approval before any purchase goes through, two-factor authentication on every transaction, and the ability to cancel without penalty, and 19% said they would never share payment information with an AI agent.
These numbers describe a consumer who wants guardrails. Consumers are warming to AI in the buyer journey, but draw the line at losing access to real people, with 77% saying they would use AI tools only if a human representative remained accessible.
Deal-Hunting Is the Gateway Drug
The most popular use case consumers identified for AI agents is price comparison. Nearly half (47%) said they would use an AI tool to find the best price for a product they already want. The figure dwarfs every other option; choosing an alternative when something is out of stock came in at just 12%.
Consumers are using AI for one specific task: finding the lowest price on something they have already decided to buy.
Currently, only 5% of consumers begin their shopping journey directly with an AI tool. Search engines lead at 34%, followed by marketplaces at 32%. AI as a starting point for discovery is still a niche behaviour, though it is attracting significant industry attention. The findings echo a bigger shift already seen across retail: 30% of consumers regularly consult AI agents such as ChatGPT or Perplexity during the shopping process, particularly among younger demographics.
Post-Purchase Is Where Consumers Are Most Open
The strongest consumer appetite in Radial’s data arrives at the end of the buyer journey. More than half (54%) said they would be likely to use AI for delivery monitoring and problem resolution. A further 36% expressed cautious interest in AI that could communicate directly with delivery systems to track orders or handle issues.
When asked what AI suggestions would be most useful, 44% of respondents cited faster delivery options, and 35% pointed to return-friendly products. The post-purchase experience, which brands have historically treated as less glamorous than acquisition and checkout, is emerging as the most natural entry point for agentic AI in consumer relationships.
Tom Schmitt, CEO of Radial, drew a direct line between fulfilment infrastructure and the viability of AI-driven commerce: “AI may change how consumers shop, but fulfilment is what makes that promise real. Retailers that invest in flexible, scalable fulfilment networks will be best positioned to support AI-driven commerce without compromising reliability.”
