Mastercard finds 79% of teens use AI to research products as agentic shopping gains ground

Artificial intelligence is becoming a regular part of how young people shop, with 79% of those aged 13 to 18 using AI to research products over the past year, according to a new Mastercard report examining the future of shopping and digital payments.

The report, A Short History of the Future of Shopping and Payments, draws on research involving 13,000 pairs of young people and their parents across 13 markets. It found that AI adoption is also growing among parents, with 70% saying they had used the technology to research products during the same period.

The findings suggest that as AI tools are increasingly baked into the shopping experience, there’s a shift in how consumers discover products and whether they’ll purchase them. Data suggests that the technology is moving from the occasional experimentation to more regular use, with 62% of young people and 49% of parents using AI to research products at least once a month.

Mastercard’s research also highlights growing openness to AI-powered shopping assistants. Some 61% of young respondents said they would be at least somewhat willing to use an AI assistant capable of managing the shopping process on their behalf. Meanwhile, 67% of parents believe their children’s generation will be more comfortable shopping with AI than they are.

The shift could accelerate the development of agentic commerce, an emerging approach in which AI systems do more than recommend products or compare prices. These systems can potentially carry out tasks such as finding suitable flights, selecting groceries and preparing orders, with the possibility of completing purchases when authorised to do so.

But whether consumers will give AI more shopping chores to do will depend on how much control they have over their transactions.Clear permissions, spending limits and additional approval requirements are important safeguards as AI agents play a greater role in purchasing decisions, said Mastercard’s report.

Consumers will want to know how errors or unexpected transactions will be handled. Establishing accountability when an AI agent makes a purchase is likely to become increasingly important as businesses explore automated shopping experiences.

AI-powered shopping could transform the way that retailers present product info on the web. As AI agents compare options for consumers, details such as pricing, stock availability, delivery times and return policies will need to be accurate and accessible to these systems.

Claims about product features and sustainability will also require verifiable information, particularly as AI tools take on a greater role in evaluating products and narrowing down consumer choices.

Another problem is payment security. The report says businesses will need reliable methods to verify the identity of an AI agent and whether it has the right to perform a specific transaction. Protecting payment details alone may not be sufficient if automated systems are increasingly authorised to make purchases for consumers.

These protections could also help ensure that AI-driven transactions are within the spending limits and permissions that users have set, giving consumers more confidence to let automated systems act on their behalf.

The results suggest that the future of AI-driven shopping will depend on more than how effectively these systems can find products and complete transactions but also on whether consumers can trust them to stay within clear boundaries.

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