Read time 5 minutes
AI in Retail (AI and the future of the retail marketer)
Why it matters:
This week's stories explore a McKinsey survey of roughly 21,000 consumers that pulls apart two things retail has always bundled together: where shoppers form their shortlist and where they complete the purchase. Retailers are holding their own at checkout, but AI chat and search tools are ahead of them on inspiration and are named as the biggest influence on recent purchases far more often than traditional search. Both pieces report the same research, and the second adds sharper questions about retail media and the role of the retailer's own channels. How much of the decision is left to influence by the time a shopper arrives?
Key takeaways:
Scott Thompson, Retail Technology News, 10/28/2026
McKinsey's survey finds that 29% of AI shoppers name AI chat or search tools as the biggest influence on their most recent purchase. That is three times the share naming traditional search engines (9%) and more than retailers' own platforms and assistants combined (21%). Use is already widespread, with 53% of consumers across the 11 markets shopping with AI, and it is moving toward transactions: in the US, the share of AI users who completed a purchase through AI rose from 10% to 17% since December 2025.
The more useful detail is the split by stage. AI chat and search tools are used nearly twice as often as retailers' own assistants for inspiration (45% vs. 23%), yet at checkout the two are almost level, with 15% of AI users buying through a retailer's assistant and 14% through a general tool. Retailers are keeping the transaction while losing the opening of the journey, which is where shortlists get formed. McKinsey's Kelsey Robinson says this holiday's winners will treat agentic capability as an "always-on experimentation muscle." The base is still small, though, with 9% of all US adults buying through AI, so this is a direction more than a verdict.
Pratik Ghadge, Business Outreach, 10/28/2026
Business Outreach, working from the same research, spells out what that sequence means in practice. An assistant can compare options before the shopper opens a retailer's site, so by the time they arrive, much of the consideration may already be over. The piece cites McKinsey's estimate that more than $3 trillion in global consumer commerce could eventually be mediated by AI agents by 2030, and notes that AI use is reaching slower online categories such as beauty (34%) and groceries (32%), where routine reorders could one day be handed to an agent.
Its sharpest argument is the article's own rather than a McKinsey finding: retail media. Sponsored placements depend on shoppers browsing a retailer's pages, so research that happens inside an assistant never exposes them to those ads, even if the retailer still fulfills the order. The same logic applies to product data, since an agent weighing price, availability, delivery time, and returns needs that information in a form it can read. In the article's framing, retailers keep the checkout while AI takes the shortlist.
Both pieces report one study, and its most useful contribution is a distinction: attention and transaction are separating. Retailers remain competitive at checkout, which means the loss shows up first in the consideration set, where it is hardest to see, rather than in sales figures.
That turns the questions for marketers toward visibility and measurement. Is the brand on the shortlist an agent builds, and can that agent read and buy the product? And how will teams measure influence that likely happens in sessions they never see? The answers will help decide where marketing and media budgets belong once the first moment of influence no longer happens on the retailer's own channels.
Check back next week for another roundup of Media That Matters.
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