{"id":139208,"date":"2026-08-13T20:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T20:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/139208\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T20:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T20:11:09","slug":"ai-shopping-agents-gain-traction-but-trust-and-control-key","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/139208\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Shopping Agents Gain Traction, but Trust and Control Key"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe use of AI agents by consumers is growing, but not in the ways retailers and brands may think.<\/p>\n

\n\tA new 57-page report from Koddi, the enterprise commerce media platform, tracked the rise of agentic AI<\/a> in commerce across the U.S., U.K. and Germany found that the market is already moving, but consumers are only moving with it in tightly defined ways.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe report\u2019s authors said people are increasingly open to AI acting as a co-pilot to help them search, filter, compare and recommend. Seventy-two percent of consumers polled said they want AI to be a co-pilot and not a full autopilot. The researchers describe a consistent pattern of \u201cconditional acceptance\u201d in their behavior. This is not a rejection of AI but an insistence on boundaries that protect consumers from mistakes they cannot easily undo. <\/p>\n

\n\tAcross categories, that boundary is shaped by perceived risk. Consumers appear most comfortable in retail<\/a>, travel, groceries and tech, which are sectors where decisions feel familiar, reversible and less likely to produce lasting damage. The research found that they are least comfortable in banking, investments, healthcare and medication, where errors carry bigger consequences and the path back to correction is harder.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn practical terms, the study suggests a preference for agentic AI to simplify drudge work and logistics, such as narrowing choices or suggesting better options, rather than taking full control of emotionally loaded or high-complexity decisions.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe research also found that trust<\/a> is the organizing principle behind acceptance, and it is \u201cexplicitly procedural rather than emotional.\u201d Users of AI agents do not extend confidence to AI by default. Instead, they demand system guardrails such as secure data handling, human checks for high-value decisions and the ability to undo, cancel, review and change choices.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the commerce media side of the equation, the report\u2019s authors said AI agent users show a strong aversion to opaque commercial influence, with \u201cpaid placement\u201d style nudges undermining trust more than many consumers initially expect. Even where monetization is not rejected outright, it must be clearly disclosed, because the biggest trust reducers are actions without approval and unclear use of personal data.<\/p>\n

\n\tTrust is a key issue not only for consumers, but for merchants who want to ensure a positive online shopping experience for customers\u2014especially when it comes to financials and personal data. Earlier this month, Sourcing Journal reported on two solution providers<\/a>, Cloudflare Inc. and Onton, who rolled out technology that addresses these issues.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\tFor retailers and brands, the implications are immediate and operational: winning will not come from louder claims about autonomy, but from designing permissioned delegation into the shopping journey.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe study points to a shift in what \u201cvalue\u201d means in commerce media, moving attention away from placements and impressions toward access, influence and measurable outcomes.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs AI advances from embedded assistance to more active decisioning, brands will need to rethink how they earn inclusion in the decision process itself, whether that inclusion is about relevance, price, reliability or clearly labeled sponsorship, because visibility alone is losing its edge.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe research also suggests where competitive advantage is likely to form over the next 12\u201318 months, as the market shifts from surfaces to systems. Advertisers are already investing at scale to test and scale agentic capabilities, but they have not fully settled on whether the best opportunities lie in onsite environments, in large language model experiences or in combined architectures.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe most successful players will treat governance as product design, the report\u2019s authors said, which will done by building \u201creversible pathways\u201d and keeping human oversight for consequential choices as well as disclosing when commercial incentives are at work.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn short, consumers want value before vision, and brands that \u201coperationalize transparency and control\u201d are the ones most likely to turn agentic momentum into more durable demand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The use of AI agents by consumers is growing, but not in the ways retailers and brands may…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[405,25,7537,51134,1379],"class_list":["post-139208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-agentic-ai","tag-ai-agents","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence-agents","tag-online-retail","tag-retail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}