Dive Brief

• Only 7% of fashion and sportswear consumers said they would allow an AI assistant to make purchases without approval, according to an ACI Worldwide survey of more than 3,300 U.S. and UK consumers released last week.
• Slightly more than half — 53% — said they were uncomfortable with letting an AI assistant make purchases on their behalf, and 14% would require manual approval for every AI assistant’s purchase.
• Primarily, shoppers were most interested in using AI tools to help them save money. The most valued features of AI tools include price drop alerts and cross-retailer price comparisons.

Dive Insight

Consumers may trust AI assistants to find them the best deals, but they don’t yet trust the technology enough to hand over purchase. Consumers still want to be involved in the purchase decisions.

“I don't think anybody wants to give up that volition,” Marie Driscoll, president of the Retail Marketing Society, told CX Dive. 

However, consumers do value AI’s ability to gather and then surface an assortment of merchandise from which they can choose.

“Think of the opportunity less as ‘AI is doing my shopping’ and more as ‘AI is helping me narrow down options,’ with the final call still firmly in the consumer's hands,” Isabelle Zdatny, head of thought leadership at Qualtrics XM Institute, told CX Dive in an email.

Privacy and trust are top concerns for consumers using AI tools. More than half — 53% — of global consumers worry that AI-enabled support poses privacy risks, according to research from Qualtrics XM Institute. And, only 2 in 5 consumers believe that organizations use their information responsibly, Zdatny said.

“It used to be that we gave lots of trust to brands, but frankly, if you look at Edelman's Trust Barometer, we don't trust anybody anymore,” Driscoll said. “Loyalty is a function of the quality of the output that an associate provides, a retailer provides, a website provides or an AI agent provides.”

Retailers have an opportunity to build loyalty and retention via the AI assistants they embed within their own applications. ACI Worldwide’s survey found that these apps are most effective when they provide useful features such as order tracking, return management, access to promotions and saved payment credentials. 

In fashion, consumers want AI tools to make shopping easier by providing a curated assortment from which they can choose. Driscoll calls this being a “better editor,” meaning that given a set of criteria, AI can scour the web and present far more options in less time than the individual could.

“You don't want the AI in a fashion environment to just provide price comparisons. That's too much like being an economist,” Driscoll said. “What you really want is a better editor. Explain why the choice is better.”

AI can explain the benefits of its options based on what that consumer said about their specific needs. 

“Is it a better quality material?” Driscoll said. “Is the fit better? Is the stretch better? Does it go with things that you've already bought? Those are the kinds of things that make AI work in fashion.”