AI agents are ready to shop for you — if you can trust them

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Kelsey Vlamis

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The moment many have waited for — where AI can actually do your bidding, not just tell you how to do it — may finally be here, but that doesn't mean consumers are ready for it.

Makers of personal AI agents like Meta's Muse are touting their ability to handle shopping tasks from beginning to end: researching items, comparing prices, and checking out on your behalf. While many consumers are open to having the AI agent handle the first two steps in that process, trusting it with the final step could prove more difficult.

A recent survey conducted by YouGov for ACI Worldwide, a global software and payments company, asked over 3,000 adults from the US and UK how they felt about using AI agents for shopping related to fashion. The survey found 53% of respondents said they would not allow an AI assistant to make purchases on their behalf under any circumstances. Only 7% said they would allow agents to make purchases without their approval.

Other data suggests that skepticism isn't limited to shopping for clothes and shoes. Accenture's Consumer Pulse Research report, which surveyed over 25,000 consumers worldwide, found that while 74% of consumers would trust a personal AI agent more than their best friend to make a purchase on their behalf, only 9% were open to fully autonomous shopping. About one in three said they'd let AI decide what to buy, but that they would personally make the payment.

As the personal AI agent moment appears to have arrived, the data suggests there's still a fundamental disconnect between wanting an AI agent to help with shopping and trusting it enough to fully hand over the reins.

"Right now, it's a trust issue," Dan Coates, director of merchant product management at ACI Worldwide, said. "People have gotten comfortable letting AI help them with discovery, comparison, and decision-making, but they still want to be the ones to pull the trigger."

Coates said it's still the wild west when it comes to agents making purchases on people's behalf, but that a purchasing framework for agents could help consumers feel more comfortable with the idea, adding, "think of it as an agentic bill of rights or rules of the road."

Some payment companies are already working on such programs, like Mastercard Agent Pay and Visa Intelligent Commerce. These agent frameworks, he said, could lay out rules for agents, consumers, merchants, and banks, adding transparency and security to the process.

Phil Bruno, chief strategy and growth officer at ACI Worldwide, said that while the capabilities of AI agents have improved, it only takes a few negative stories to impact user trust.

Early users of personal AI agents have already reported some issues. A tech reviews YouTuber said Muse gave his address to a potential buyer on Facebook Marketplace and arranged a pickup without his knowledge. A Meta Superintelligence Labs staffer said on X that in similar cases Muse was "following direct instructions and correctly asked for permission." A representative for the company previously told Business Insider it attempted to contact the YouTuber but did not get a response.

While Muse can make purchases on users' behalf, Meta says the agent will always ask for approval first.

Bruno said trust would likely build up gradually as users experiment with agents, starting with the "tinkerers" who are trying it out now and eventually with a broader set of early adopters. He said that testing will likely start with merchants that users already trust and are already comfortable with one-click ordering, like Amazon.

He also said that asking whether AI agents are ready to take over purchasing decisions isn't the right question.

"It's not that it's got to be ready, but it's got to be better. And how much better?" he said. "Is it appreciably better in a way that now I actually want this to occur?"

We're interested in how people across different generations are using — or not using — AI agents. Tell us about your experience in the survey below.

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Kelsey Vlamis

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Kelsey Vlamis is a senior reporter for Business Insider, where she covers business and tech news. She also writes business stories about travel, luxury, and culture. Previously, she covered the environment, outdoors, and indigenous issues.Her feature story "Disaster at 18,200 feet" received awards from the New York Press Club and the North American Travel Journalists Association, as well as honorable mention from the Society of American Travel Writers. She has also received an American Journalism Online Award for her coverage on missing and murdered Indigenous people in Wyoming.She's appeared on CBS, NPR, NBC, and other outlets to discuss her reporting. She previously worked on the world news desk at the BBC in London and received a master's in journalism from Northwestern University.She can be reached by email at [email protected] or via the encrypted-messaging app Signal at kelseyv.21.

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