February 5, 2026
rafapress/Depositphotos.com
How Soon Until AI Dominates Product Search?
More than one-third of AI-competent consumers (37%) already begin their searches with AI tools rather than traditional search engines, and 59% believe AI will become their main way of finding information, according to a new survey.
The survey of 500 consumers who actively use AI tools from Eight Oh Two, an SEO and PPC marketing agency, found 62% choose AI because it provides quick, summarized answers instead of long lists of websites. A further 60% believe AI delivers better, clearer answers than traditional search.
At the same time, the survey identified several frustrations with traditional search, including clicking through too many links (40%), too many ads and sponsored results (37%), and difficulty getting a straight answer (33%).
Eight Oh Two’s study stated, “People turn to AI because it feels faster, clearer, and less cluttered than traditional search. Instead of digging through multiple links or ads, they want a single, direct explanation they can act on immediately.”
The survey still found AI-search faces trust and privacy issues. While 80% feel confident AI provides unbiased information, 85% still double-check AI answers elsewhere. Of the respondents, 68% worry about how AI uses their personal information.
Search Engines May Not Be Beaten by Agentic AI (Yet), But Rather Find a Third Way
The survey further found many AI enthusiasts still prefer search engines for product reviews and pricing, news and recent events, images and videos, and health and medical information.
In reviewing the study, Danny Goodwin, editorial director of Search Engine Land, wrote, “AI isn’t replacing search, but it’s reshaping where search begins, how people discover brands, and which options they consider. A hybrid journey is emerging: AI delivers the first answer, and traditional search confirms it.”
Constructor and Shopify’s 2025 State of E-Commerce report showed that 45% of shoppers do not care whether product recommendations come from humans or algorithms — “as long as it’s the right fit.” Nearly one-in-five respondents would even trust an AI agent more than their partner to choose a gift, rising to 25% among Gen Z.
Based on an online survey of more than 1,500 consumers in the U.S., U.K., and Germany, the study likewise identified pain points around traditional search, including needing to continually reformulate queries to make the search engine “get it,” weak personalization on retail websites, and the time it takes to scroll through pages of search results.
McKinsey analysis released last October predicted that brands may see a 20% to 50% decline in traffic from traditional search channels, with about half of Google searches already having AI summaries. Further, McKinsey survey showed half of consumers now intentionally seek out AI-powered search engines.
The consultancy said brands will need to improve visibility and positive sentiment on both AI summaries and AI platforms. McKinsey said, “They will need to consider modifying their content strategy and ultimately how they influence the broader set of sources that AI-powered search uses to generate answers to consumer questions.”
BrainTrust
Neil Saunders
Managing Director, GlobalData
John Lietsch
CEO/Founder, Align Business Consulting
Brian Numainville
Principal, The Feedback Group
Recent Discussions
Discussion Questions
When and how will AI alter online product research, discovery, and search behavior?
How will retailers and brands need to rethink their approach to both digital content and organic search?
Poll
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Within the online ecosystem, AI is becoming way more prevalent in product search and product discovery. That said, there isn’t one universal platform. Amazon remains a key start point for many. Others use Google. Others use newer tools like ChatGPT. And others are using AI tools on specific marketplaces like ThredUP. It’s the AI technology that’s becoming more universal, not any one provider.
I would also add a point on something that AI zealots miss. AI will not dominate every purchase decision now nor anytime soon. Any accurate and holistic reading of the data shows that a vast amount of product discovery and product decision making still happens in physical stores and is not touched by AI. Yes, AI solves for the challenges of search and discovery online. But it does not replace the serendipity and excitement of discovery in physical locations. Technologists sometimes forget the importance of that human element!
Does that mean we can stop talking about it? If so, my answer is
not soon enough.
The difficulty in answering this question is its “absoluteness.” I have difficulty with the premise that it will ever dominate product search. I think it has already proven to be an invaluable complement to traditional search but if our widespread love for conspiracy-theories is any indication, AI will never reach complete dominance because users will likely never have complete trust in the accuracy, reliability and impartiality of the results (emphasis on impartiality).
This survey reveals transition period behavior but misframes the strategic battle. The decisive contest isn’t “AI search dominance.” It’s Browser Wars 2.0: who controls the infrastructure layer between consumers and commerce. Platform-controlled agents (Amazon’s Rufus, Google’s Gemini) optimize for revenue extraction within walled gardens. Consumer-controlled agents (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity) can evaluate across retailers. That 85% still verify answers shows we’re pre-delegation; when consumers fully trust agents to optimize for them, traditional SEO becomes irrelevant.
Retailers asking about “content strategy” miss the infrastructure question: optimize for platform agents extracting margin, or position for consumer agents demanding transparency? The 18-36 month window before behavioral expectations lock determines whether AI enables consumer sovereignty or perfects platform control through sophisticated intermediation.
I’d add one word to the first question. Much. How much will AI alter online product research? I’d have said search works pretty well right now. (Right…said the analog boomer dude.) So we are about to spend billions and billions and billions of dollars on AI…AND THE ELECTRICTY TO POWER IT…and how much better is search going to be? So search will migrate away from traditional channels into AI powered channels. And customer spending will change…how? More? Or maybe a different product than a traditional search would have served up? I guess I am asking an ROI question or a Cost/Benefit question. I read all the sexy stuff about AI and then I read about the costs, both financial and environmental, and I’m not seeing or reading anything that reconciles it all into a nice neat package where I can exhale and say, “OH! Got it. Thank you.”
Not sure about when it will dominate search, but AI is already making inroads. When your very non-technical friends tell you they are “asking Chat” for product recommendations rather than searching on Google, you know it is having an impact. The difference is that AI gives you answers instead of the links Google gives you. And if you think Google gives you “unbiased” results, think again.
Consumers are already using AI, even if they don’t know it. Regarding product search, if we are not there yet, we will be. Amazon invested $125 billion last year and will invest another $200 billion this year. Google invested $90 billion last year and plans to invest another $185 billion this year.
AI is already part of our everyday lives. It will not be a consumer choice to use it. It will be the only choice.
As with most shifts in retail, the speed and scale at which AI reshapes product discovery ultimately depend on the customer experience. If AI helps shoppers find better products faster — reducing friction, surfacing relevant options, and improving confidence in their purchase decisions — adoption will accelerate rapidly and reshape how consumers research, compare, and buy. But if the experience produces poor recommendations, biased results, or confusing outputs, enthusiasm could fade just as quickly. Retail history is full of overhyped technologies that failed to meet expectations — and without consistent, reliable outcomes, AI-driven discovery risks becoming the next “3-D Television” moment, only on a much larger and more consequential scale. (It should be noted that, as a former Consumer Electronics buyer, I’m still a bit “scared” by that whole episode…)
For retailers and brands, this means rethinking digital content from the ground up. Traditional SEO strategies built around keywords and static product descriptions will need to evolve toward structured, AI-readable content ecosystems — richer product data, contextual storytelling, authentic reviews, and high-quality imagery or video that helps intelligent systems interpret and recommend items accurately. Brands will need to focus less on gaming algorithms and more on providing clear, trustworthy information that AI models can interpret to deliver personalized recommendations. Organic discovery will increasingly hinge on how well a product’s attributes, use cases, and customer outcomes are expressed — not just where it ranks in a search list.
Ultimately, AI won’t replace the fundamentals of good merchandising — it will amplify them. Retailers that invest in clean data, consistent taxonomy, and content designed to help customers make smarter decisions will benefit the most. Those that rely on outdated product pages or thin content risk becoming invisible in an AI-mediated shopping journey. The real opportunity isn’t just faster search — it’s smarter discovery that aligns with how customers actually shop, provided the industry stays focused on delivering genuine value rather than chasing technology for its own sake.
Already many AI engines are supporting product discovery directly within their own interfaces, allowing users to compare options, evaluate features, summarize reviews, and make informed decisions without ever visiting a traditional search results page. This shift is fundamentally changing how products are surfaced and evaluated. It forces retailers to rethink how they structure and expose their catalogs — not just for human browsing, but for machine consumption.
The old SEO playbook, where search engines crawled web pages and ranked products based on keywords and backlinks, is gradually giving way to an AI discovery model. In this model, structured data, clean product attributes, pricing transparency, inventory accuracy, and API accessibility become critical. Retailers now need to optimize for AI readability and interoperability, not just page ranking. Those who proactively invest in rich metadata, standardized schemas, and open APIs will be better positioned in this emerging AI-first discovery ecosystem.
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Within the online ecosystem, AI is becoming way more prevalent in product search and product discovery. That said, there isn’t one universal platform. Amazon remains a key start point for many. Others use Google. Others use newer tools like ChatGPT. And others are using AI tools on specific marketplaces like ThredUP. It’s the AI technology that’s becoming more universal, not any one provider.
I would also add a point on something that AI zealots miss. AI will not dominate every purchase decision now nor anytime soon. Any accurate and holistic reading of the data shows that a vast amount of product discovery and product decision making still happens in physical stores and is not touched by AI. Yes, AI solves for the challenges of search and discovery online. But it does not replace the serendipity and excitement of discovery in physical locations. Technologists sometimes forget the importance of that human element!
Does that mean we can stop talking about it? If so, my answer is
not soon enough.
The difficulty in answering this question is its “absoluteness.” I have difficulty with the premise that it will ever dominate product search. I think it has already proven to be an invaluable complement to traditional search but if our widespread love for conspiracy-theories is any indication, AI will never reach complete dominance because users will likely never have complete trust in the accuracy, reliability and impartiality of the results (emphasis on impartiality).
This survey reveals transition period behavior but misframes the strategic battle. The decisive contest isn’t “AI search dominance.” It’s Browser Wars 2.0: who controls the infrastructure layer between consumers and commerce. Platform-controlled agents (Amazon’s Rufus, Google’s Gemini) optimize for revenue extraction within walled gardens. Consumer-controlled agents (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity) can evaluate across retailers. That 85% still verify answers shows we’re pre-delegation; when consumers fully trust agents to optimize for them, traditional SEO becomes irrelevant.
Retailers asking about “content strategy” miss the infrastructure question: optimize for platform agents extracting margin, or position for consumer agents demanding transparency? The 18-36 month window before behavioral expectations lock determines whether AI enables consumer sovereignty or perfects platform control through sophisticated intermediation.
I’d add one word to the first question. Much. How much will AI alter online product research? I’d have said search works pretty well right now. (Right…said the analog boomer dude.) So we are about to spend billions and billions and billions of dollars on AI…AND THE ELECTRICTY TO POWER IT…and how much better is search going to be? So search will migrate away from traditional channels into AI powered channels. And customer spending will change…how? More? Or maybe a different product than a traditional search would have served up? I guess I am asking an ROI question or a Cost/Benefit question. I read all the sexy stuff about AI and then I read about the costs, both financial and environmental, and I’m not seeing or reading anything that reconciles it all into a nice neat package where I can exhale and say, “OH! Got it. Thank you.”
Not sure about when it will dominate search, but AI is already making inroads. When your very non-technical friends tell you they are “asking Chat” for product recommendations rather than searching on Google, you know it is having an impact. The difference is that AI gives you answers instead of the links Google gives you. And if you think Google gives you “unbiased” results, think again.
Consumers are already using AI, even if they don’t know it. Regarding product search, if we are not there yet, we will be. Amazon invested $125 billion last year and will invest another $200 billion this year. Google invested $90 billion last year and plans to invest another $185 billion this year.
AI is already part of our everyday lives. It will not be a consumer choice to use it. It will be the only choice.
As with most shifts in retail, the speed and scale at which AI reshapes product discovery ultimately depend on the customer experience. If AI helps shoppers find better products faster — reducing friction, surfacing relevant options, and improving confidence in their purchase decisions — adoption will accelerate rapidly and reshape how consumers research, compare, and buy. But if the experience produces poor recommendations, biased results, or confusing outputs, enthusiasm could fade just as quickly. Retail history is full of overhyped technologies that failed to meet expectations — and without consistent, reliable outcomes, AI-driven discovery risks becoming the next “3-D Television” moment, only on a much larger and more consequential scale. (It should be noted that, as a former Consumer Electronics buyer, I’m still a bit “scared” by that whole episode…)
For retailers and brands, this means rethinking digital content from the ground up. Traditional SEO strategies built around keywords and static product descriptions will need to evolve toward structured, AI-readable content ecosystems — richer product data, contextual storytelling, authentic reviews, and high-quality imagery or video that helps intelligent systems interpret and recommend items accurately. Brands will need to focus less on gaming algorithms and more on providing clear, trustworthy information that AI models can interpret to deliver personalized recommendations. Organic discovery will increasingly hinge on how well a product’s attributes, use cases, and customer outcomes are expressed — not just where it ranks in a search list.
Ultimately, AI won’t replace the fundamentals of good merchandising — it will amplify them. Retailers that invest in clean data, consistent taxonomy, and content designed to help customers make smarter decisions will benefit the most. Those that rely on outdated product pages or thin content risk becoming invisible in an AI-mediated shopping journey. The real opportunity isn’t just faster search — it’s smarter discovery that aligns with how customers actually shop, provided the industry stays focused on delivering genuine value rather than chasing technology for its own sake.
Already many AI engines are supporting product discovery directly within their own interfaces, allowing users to compare options, evaluate features, summarize reviews, and make informed decisions without ever visiting a traditional search results page. This shift is fundamentally changing how products are surfaced and evaluated. It forces retailers to rethink how they structure and expose their catalogs — not just for human browsing, but for machine consumption.
The old SEO playbook, where search engines crawled web pages and ranked products based on keywords and backlinks, is gradually giving way to an AI discovery model. In this model, structured data, clean product attributes, pricing transparency, inventory accuracy, and API accessibility become critical. Retailers now need to optimize for AI readability and interoperability, not just page ranking. Those who proactively invest in rich metadata, standardized schemas, and open APIs will be better positioned in this emerging AI-first discovery ecosystem.