Agentic AI Shopping Jumps 200% as 86% of Commerce Leaders Raise AI Priority
Updated
Updated · ZDNet · Aug 3
Agentic AI Shopping Jumps 200% as 86% of Commerce Leaders Raise AI Priority
3 articles · Updated · ZDNet · Aug 3
Summary
Consumer use of AI assistants as the first stop in shopping rose 200% from 2025 to 2026, according to Salesforce data spanning 1.5 billion shoppers, 3,450 commerce professionals and 4,690 consumers.
Eighty-six percent of commerce leaders said AI is raising customer expectations, pushing AI expansion to their top priority and moving companies beyond pilots toward operational scale.
Seventy-one percent of leaders now view AI as core to commerce operations, but more than 6 in 10 cited poor data integration, weak AI strategy and poor data quality as barriers to scaling.
Only 27% of commerce organizations said customer data is fully unified across sales, service, marketing and commerce teams, limiting personalization, measurement and cross-channel consistency.
Nearly 9 in 10 commerce professionals expect AI search to become essential to product discovery within a year, signaling a broader shift toward more autonomous commerce.