By PYMNTS | October 23, 2026
Highlights
Even when price, shipping and returns are equal, 40.2% of consumers would direct an AI shopping agent to a large marketplace over a brand site or retailer.
Among marketplace shoppers, 53.9% would switch to a brand site for a lower price. Only 12.1% would switch for AI-handled checkout.
AI has shifted where consumers research but not where they buy. Amazon closed 59.7% of the most recent AI-assisted purchases surveyed, and 57.9% of AI shoppers said they usually still buy there.
Artificial intelligence (AI) shopping agents could make it easier for consumers to compare products and complete purchases, but they may not change where shoppers spend their money.
Even when an autonomous AI assistant can purchase the same product from competing merchants at identical prices, with identical shipping and return terms, 40.2% of U.S. consumers would prefer it to buy from a large online marketplace, PYMNTS Intelligence’s October report “From Prompt to Purchase: Who Wins the AI Shopper?” found. By comparison, 21.8% would choose a department store or large retailer, 16.1% would select a brand’s own website, and another 21.8% would let the AI decide.
Shoppers Pick Marketplaces for Returns, Selection and Habit
PYMNTS Intelligence surveyed 2,191 U.S. consumers in August. Even with every term of the offer matched, most still had a preference. Among those who chose a specific seller type, 36.6% cited easier or more reliable returns, 34.9% cited better selection and 32.7% pointed to habit.
Those reasons reflect relationships built over years of purchases, not differences in the offer. Among respondents who reported their most recent AI-assisted purchase, 59.7% completed it on Amazon. Brands’ own websites or apps were chosen by 6.3%. And 57.9% of consumers who use AI to shop said they usually still buy on Amazon even when AI helps them find the product.
That gives incumbents an edge an AI agent can’t easily erase. “Recommendation is the easy part. Certainty and trust is the product,” PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster wrote in her September column “As AI Assistants Fight Over Shoppers, Infrastructure Gets Paid Either Way.”
Marketplace Shoppers Would Switch for Price, Not AI Checkout
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Among 1,286 respondents who complete most purchases on marketplaces, 53.9% said a lower price or exclusive discount would move them to buy directly from a brand. Another 49.9% cited free shipping as fast as a marketplace’s. An AI assistant handling checkout drew just 12.1%.
OpenAI tested that gap. It launched Instant Checkout in ChatGPT in September 2025, letting shoppers buy from Etsy and Shopify merchants without leaving a conversation, PYMNTS reported. In March, OpenAI said Instant Checkout was “moving to Apps,” shifting purchases to retailers’ own apps inside ChatGPT, PYMNTS reported.
Amazon and Walmart Will Hold Over Half of US eCommerce in 2026
Amazon and Walmart will together capture more than half of U.S. retail eCommerce sales this year, eMarketer predicted. Both are building agent layers of their own. When a shopper picks a Walmart item inside Google’s Gemini, Walmart’s Sparky assistant takes over the basket, PYMNTS reported.
Amazon has moved to control how outside agents reach its site. In November 2025, it sued Perplexity AI, alleging the startup disguised its Comet browser as a regular Chrome session to bypass blocks Amazon had put in place. A federal judge granted Amazon a preliminary injunction in March, PYMNTS reported.
The Ninth Circuit vacated the injunction in August, ruling that it was Comet’s users, not Perplexity, accessing Amazon’s systems, PYMNTS reported. The court said it did “not establish a new legal regime governing agentic AI,” leaving open whether AI agents can shop on third-party platforms without the platform’s consent.
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