Only 10% of Consumers Start Product Discovery With AI, AlixPartners Finds

Only 10% of consumers currently begin product discovery with AI, according to AlixPartners' 2026 Consumer Sentiment Index, which surveyed more than 9,000 U.S. consumers about their shopping habits. The number climbs to 14% among Gen Z and millennials, but remains modest across every generation and income bracket surveyed.

Interest, however, is far from uniform. Nearly 70% of consumers earning $150,000 or more consider shopping with AI important, compared with 53% of those earning less than $45,000. AlixPartners describes AI as an ascendant, if not yet commonplace, discovery channel — and the majority of consumers surveyed said they are not ready to hand the actual purchase over to an AI agent (software that completes tasks on a shopper's behalf).

Where will adoption arrive first?

The report predicts an uptick in adoption, particularly for commoditized goods. In fashion, brand and relationship will still matter at the top of the market. AlixPartners foresees a future where queries for replenishment basics — like "black leggings, TTS, under $30" — will be offloaded more readily to AI agents.

That shift will have bisecting consequences, the report argues. The top end of retail will remain brand-led, with AI-powered copycats as the biggest concern. The bottom of the market will become "spec-and-price driven." Brands caught in the middle must find a way to navigate both forces — a squeeze the report does not resolve for them.

Will rich and poor shoppers use AI differently?

A similar bisection will likely appear in consumer adoption. Upper-income shoppers are more likely to treat AI as a concierge, useful for styling and curated product recommendations. For everyone else, AI will function as a price-comparison and decision-making tool. AlixPartners notes this aligns with other research showing that is how consumers already use these tools.

The caveat: even if today's usage skews toward comparison and recommendation, the better AI agents become at suggesting products, the more likely consumers will trust those agents with other pieces of the buying process. The risk, per the report, is that brands could eventually become sidelined from the customer relationship.

What does the report demand of product data?

For most companies, the report is blunt about what matters: product metadata — the structured attributes machines read.

"The machine doesn't read your beautiful imagery or your persuasive copy — it reads structured data: attributes, availability, price."

It continues: "If your product data is thin or messy, the agent either can't surface you or describes you badly, and you go invisible in the fastest-growing channel there is."

That claim deserves scrutiny: "fastest-growing" is easy to assert from a 10% base, and the report does not publish a growth rate. The metadata prescription, though, is concrete and testable against any brand's current product feed.

How are retailers responding?

Several large retailers are insulating themselves from disintermediation by launching their own internal AI assistants, including Target, Best Buy, Macy's and The Home Depot. The strategy keeps the AI layer — and the customer relationship — inside the retailer's own walls rather than ceding it to third-party agents.

The takeaway: adoption is low today, but the fault lines the report draws — luxury versus commodity, concierge versus comparison tool, structured data versus brand storytelling — will determine which brands stay visible as the channel scales.