How AI-powered search is reshaping product discovery, retail shelf dynamics, and brand influence.
As my good pals at Retailbound always tell me, it is one thing to get into retail with a consumer tech product and another to stay on shelves and succeed once you’re there.
The new key to crushing retail once you’ve got a foot in the door? If you believe the data, it’s AI search presence.
Several studies speak to this question:
In a general, aggregate sense, this McKinsey report found that roughly half of consumers already use AI-powered search engines, and the channel is on track to influence more than $700 billion in purchase decisions by 2028. That’s a gargantuan amount of cash and means you cannot ignore the influence of AI search on your funnel.
Fairly general and you might already know this, but there’s more to the story.
Brick and mortar impact
This piece, from Retail TouchPoints, cites research by Ernst & Young that found that 77% of retail sales still occur in-store, and 82% of those same surveyed consumers now say they trust AI-generated product recommendations.
- So, even though much shopping still happens offline, the discovery & recommendation layer (which AI supports) is recognised and trusted. And we know AI search is heavily influenced by the journalistic sources that are the main focus of PR
- This bridges the digital and physical: consumers may be influenced by AI-search or AI-recommendations and then make the purchase in-store.
New retail power dynamics
AI search is also changing retail power dynamics. This INSEAD research highlights that AI agents are shifting the power in how consumers find and choose products, making the retailer less of the gatekeeper and making product discovery less dependent on traditional retail shelf placement.
- The article states these AI agents “can search across hundreds of sources and weigh options,” so consumers may arrive in stores already partly influenced by AI search.
- Meaning: by the time a shopper walks through the store door, they may already have pre-filtered or been influenced by AI search, which affects what they buy, where they go in the store, and which brands they favor.
Interesting times and a seismic shift is afoot. I’m around should you wish to chat.