Artificial intelligence is becoming more influential across retail, but the emerging picture suggests that technology alone may not determine which companies build durable customer relationships. AI is increasingly shaping how consumers discover products and interact with brands, while human support remains an important part of the customer journey.
Over the past year, the share of consumers finding products through traditional search fell by 15%, while product discovery through AI tools and applications increased by 38%. The figures indicate that conversational commerce is moving beyond experimentation and becoming a more significant route through which shoppers research products.
That change has implications for how retailers allocate marketing resources and position their digital channels. Companies that have historically relied heavily on conventional search strategies may need to adjust as AI-powered discovery becomes more widely used. At the same time, the development does not remove the need for established customer experience capabilities. Instead, it adds another layer to the retail technology landscape.
The potential scale of AI-powered search is substantial. One industry forecast cited in the research expects AI-powered search to play a role in generating around $750 billion in annual revenue by 2028. That expectation helps explain why retailers continue to invest in AI across marketing, operational processes and customer interactions.
However, consumer acceptance of AI does not appear to translate into a preference for fully automated service. Research covering 3,000 consumers and 600 senior customer experience executives across the United States, United Kingdom and Germany found that eight in ten consumers were willing to use AI-powered customer service. Despite that level of acceptance, around two-thirds still preferred speaking with a human.
This distinction is important when assessing the role AI may ultimately play in retail economics. Automation can potentially improve efficiency and make routine interactions easier to manage, but retailers that remove human assistance altogether may introduce new customer experience risks. A majority of consumers surveyed said they were more likely to trust AI when they had a clear route to a live agent. By comparison, only around a quarter expressed that level of trust when no human option was available.
Customer service quality also remains a potential source of differentiation. More than half of consumers in separate research said they would rather do almost anything else than contact customer service. As digital purchasing becomes faster and more convenient, poor service can become more noticeable, particularly when customers encounter a problem that automated systems cannot resolve.
itim Group plc (LON:ITIM) is a SaaS-based technology company that enables store-based retailers to optimise their businesses to improve financial performance and effectively compete with online competitors. Itim adds retail value by helping multi-channel retailers optimise their business and their stores to improve financial performance and compete more effectively with the “Amazons”.
