Nowadays AI is not limited to just answering questions. Now personal AI agents have arrived who can do all the shopping for you. These agents can handle the work from research to price comparison and finally payment. Agents like Meta’s Muse are claiming this capability. But the question is, how much trust do people give them?
A new survey has revealed that most people are not fully prepared yet. For ACI Worldwide, YouGov polled more than 3,000 adults in the US and UK about their fashion and sportswear purchases. The results were shocking. 53 percent people clearly said that they will not allow AI assistant to make purchases on their behalf under any circumstances. There were only 7 percent people who could allow the agent to make the purchase even without their approval.
not sure yet
In a major survey by Accenture, opinions of more than 25,000 consumers were taken. In this, 74 percent people said that they can trust the personal AI agent more than their best friend that he will buy the right thing on their behalf. But only 9 percent people were ready for completely autonomous shopping (i.e. doing the entire work without asking). About one-third of people said that AI can decide what to buy, but they will make the payment themselves.
It is clear that people are ready to get research and comparison done by AI, but they want to keep the final step – i.e. the decision to spend money – in their own hands.
“Right now it’s an issue of trust,” says Dan Coats of ACI Worldwide. People have become accustomed to taking the help of AI in discovery and decision making, but want to pull the trigger themselves.”
Experts believe that at present the system of purchasing through agents is like the Wild West. Frameworks like MasterCard’s Agent Pay and Visa’s Intelligent Commerce are trying to solve this problem. These will create rules on how agents, consumers, merchants and banks will work, so that transparency and security increases.
It will take time to build trust. Some initial experiences were not good. One YouTuber said that Muse posted his address on Facebook Marketplace without his knowledge and scheduled a pickup.
Meta says the muse always seeks approval. ACI’s Phil Bruno says some negative stories can quickly break trust. Trust will be built gradually. First the people who want to try the technology will start, then the common people. Start with sites where people are already accustomed to one-click ordering, like Amazon.
Bruno says the right question is not whether AI agents are ready or not. The question is how much better they are. Are they so good that people actually want an agent to shop for them?
Currently, AI agents have progressed in terms of capability, but they have yet to win the full trust of consumers. Until the issues of security, transparency and control are resolved, most people would prefer to keep the final decision in their own hands.
