U.S. shoppers feel most confident buying apparel (5.21/7) and least confident buying baby products (4.38/7)

Buyer behaviour

Average rating by product category, full sample

Reader Note:: All 1,493 U.S. shoppers rated how confident they feel finding the best product in each of 18 categories on a 1–7 scale. Apparel 5.21, Electronics 5.09, Grocery and food delivery 5.07 lead; Fitness equipment 4.46 and Baby products and child safety 4.38 trail; cross-category mean 4.82. Among online shoppers only, the mean is 4.95 vs 4.88 in June 2026, with the same top and bottom categories. Baby products also rank last for trust in AI recommendations. Self-reported online survey of U.S. adults (Aug 27 – Sep 1, 2026), unweighted; Product.ai sells verification products for commerce.
Evidence:: Self-reported behaviour
Vendor interest:: High — This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
Sample:: Survey of 1,493 U.S. adults who shop for products, online or in stores, from a general-population panel; unweighted with quotas on age, gender, and region. Trend comparisons use 1,247 online shoppers; AI-user findings mostly use 550 respondents who used AI for product research in the past 90 days.

Good for

A rough sense of size and direction, and deciding what to look at first.

Exact numbers, or saying that one thing caused another.
This was measured in one market. It may not hold where you are.
This is an aggregated or average number that covers very different cases. Real results in a particular segment may differ.
This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.

Gemini and ChatGPT lead AI shopping research in the U.S.; 64.0% of AI shoppers use two or more assistants

Share of AI shoppers using each AI assistant in the past 90 days
Assistant used in the past 90 days	Share of AI users (%)
Google Gemini	63.5%
ChatGPT	60%
Amazon's shopping assistant	27.5%
Walmart's shopping assistant	22.5%
Microsoft Copilot	22.4%

89.9%

of AI users on the online-shopper trend base said they verified the assistant’s recommendation before buying

60%–90%

of consumers’ value perception was explained by price perception across multiple subsectors in Deloitte’s regression analysis

Our Substack turns the data behind these cards into full breakdowns: what changed, why, and what to do about it.

38%

adoption increase in older populations after Dubai Smart ID used a calming tone and simpler biometric explanations in 2021

Only 36% of Gen Z call themselves price-conscious, vs 40% of Millennials, 45% of Gen X and 55% of Boomers

Share of each generation who describe themselves as price-conscious
Generation	Share who describe themselves as price-conscious (%)
Gen Z	36%
Millennials	40%
Gen X	45%
Baby Boomers	55%

86% of both Gen Z and Millennials say a smartphone is their most important device