Two surveys from marketing software company Attentive found demand for more relevant brand messages alongside concern about data use, highlighting a challenge for retailers adopting AI shopping tools.
Attentive surveyed 1,050 recent online shoppers in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia on Feb. 23. All had subscribed to marketing emails or texts from brands. In that group, 64% described the messages they received as too generic, and another 64% expressed concern about uses of their data they did not understand.
Relevance came with a boundary: 80% said poorly matched messages made them more likely to tune out a brand. At the same time, 42% found personalization uncomfortable or invasive when it appeared to draw on information they had never provided.
Asked what would make AI personalization more acceptable, 51% selected strong privacy and security policies. Clearer explanations of data collection and use followed at 45%, while 42% selected the ability to request deletion of their information.
Attentive’s second survey, conducted Aug. 12–14, covered 3,054 U.S. adults who had browsed, researched, compared or bought a product in the previous three months. Of all respondents, 68% said they had used a general AI chatbot for a shopping task during that period. Attentive weighted the results to U.S. population benchmarks.
Among those AI-assisted shoppers, 93% consulted information beyond AI while deciding whether to buy in one recent shopping experience. Of the same group, 60% preferred to make a future purchase on the website or app where the product is sold, while 17% preferred checkout in a chatbot.
That group also reported an effect on their choices: 62% said a chatbot had led them to buy a different product or brand from their usual choice. The figure reflects shoppers’ accounts of their decisions, rather than a measured effect on sales.
Attentive sells tools for personalized marketing, giving it a commercial interest in the findings. Its February poll covered people already receiving brand messages, while its August poll covered recent U.S. shoppers. Separately, Pew Research Center found that 71% of 5,119 U.S. adults surveyed Feb. 17–23 expected increased AI use to make their personal information less secure; Pew asked about AI generally, not retail marketing.
