For years, most conversations around AI have focused on productivity; how quickly it can generate content, automate tasks or answer questions. What’s becoming more interesting now is how AI is starting to influence consumer decision-making itself.
Increasingly, people are not just using AI to help research products, but to narrow options, compare services and, in some cases, make decisions on their behalf. In categories where choice has become overwhelming, AI is beginning to act less like a tool and more like a shortcut.
Recent research suggests this move is happening faster than many brands expected. A study of UK consumers found that 31% would allow AI to automatically manage subscriptions on their behalf, including cancelling and switching services, rising to 43% among Gen Z consumers. Meanwhile, separate research from Adyen found that AI shopping assistant usage among UK consumers has more than doubled over the past year, rising from 12% to 28%.
Decision fatigue is becoming more visible
Modern consumer journeys involve a huge number of small decisions. Which subscription is still worth paying for? Which energy tariff is best? Which streaming service should stay and which should go?
Individually, none of these decisions feel particularly significant, but together they create a constant layer of low-level cognitive effort. This is where AI becomes appealing; not necessarily because consumers want to hand over control completely, but because they want help reducing complexity and filtering information more efficiently.
Recent research found that 53% of shoppers using AI assistants say the main benefit is time saving, while 51% say it helps cut through online noise. What’s interesting is that the appeal here is really focused primarily on convenience, rather than novelty. AI is not just being positioned as something innovative, but as something that makes everyday decisions feel easier.
Consumers are becoming more comfortable with AI guidance
There are already signs that AI is moving beyond product discovery and into actual decision-making. Research suggests consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable allowing AI to guide purchases, particularly in lower-risk or more functional categories. Research has found that 44% of UK shoppers would now be comfortable allowing AI to handle the entire shopping process once preferences and budgets have been set, rising to 49% among Millennials.
That represents quite a significant behavioural change. Traditionally, consumers moved through a fairly predictable process of searching, comparing, evaluating, and then deciding. Whereas AI increasingly compresses those stages, reducing the amount of active consideration involved and narrowing choices much earlier in the journey.
In practice, this means recommendations may start to carry more weight than traditional brand familiarity in some categories, particularly where products feel relatively interchangeable or low risk.
Convenience is starting to outweigh control
What makes this particularly interesting is that consumers are often aware of the trade-off they are making. Many still express concerns around trust, privacy, and accuracy when it comes to AI, yet willingness to use it continues to rise.
This suggests consumers are not necessarily looking for full automation, but selective delegation. They are happy for AI to handle the filtering, comparison, and admin-heavy parts of decision-making, while retaining final approval themselves.
In categories with high levels of choice and low emotional involvement, that balance becomes increasingly attractive. Research from Klaviyo, for example, found that 80% of UK shoppers are already using AI tools either for shopping directly or for researching products online, with saving money and reducing effort among the main drivers.
What this means for brands
For brands, this creates a meaningful shift in how consideration may happen in future. Historically, businesses focused heavily on visibility within search engines, marketplaces, and advertising platforms. Increasingly, they now need to consider how products are interpreted and surfaced by AI systems themselves.
This changes the importance of clear product information, transparent pricing, structured data, reviews, and trusted signals. It may also reduce the value of complexity as if AI tools are helping consumers simplify decisions, then propositions that are difficult to compare or overly complicated may become less effective over time.
Overall, this consumer shift seems to reflect how complex digital decision-making has become. Comparing products, managing subscriptions, and filtering large amounts of information all takes time, so tools that simplify those decisions are naturally becoming more appealing.