Walmart: AI gains foothold with consumers in shopping and search
A new survey from Walmart indicates that consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable with using artificial intelligence tools.
The new Walmart "Retail Rewired Report" reveals that the trust gap between AI-based recommendations and influencer endorsements is much smaller than may have been anticipated. More than one-in-four (27%) surveyed consumers prefer AI suggestions to those from social media influencers (24%), which Walmart says signals a turning point for AI.
The preference for AI suggestions was most pronounced among the respondent subsets of earning $100,000 or more per year (40% AI/23% social media influencers), males (36% AI/23% social media influencers), Gen X (32% AI/20% social media influencers) and parents (39% AI/30% social media influencers).
Remaining respondents in each category said they didn’t know which they preferred.
Consumers feel need for speed
The survey also shows that respondents have a general desire for a fast shopping experience, with many seeing AI as a valuable tool for speeding things up. Seven-in-10 (69%) said speed of the entire shopping experience is a priority. This number climbed to 80% among parents.
More than half (54%) of respondents agreed that using digital shopping agents or assistants saved time, while 25% disagreed. The top three respondent concerns regarding AI shopping agents were privacy and security when sharing preferences and data (37%), irrelevant product suggestions (33%), and getting pushed toward products and brands they do not have an interest in (29%).
[READ MORE: How agentic AI is finding its place in retail]
Top privacy concerns
Respondents cited the following three privacy-related concerns about AI-aided shopping:
- 27% of respondents want clear transparency around data use and third-party involvement.
- 26% of respondents want to control what data is shared, with clear privacy settings.
- 25% of respondents want only the minimum amount of data collected, avoiding the storing of sensitive personal information.
Four findings
Based on survey results, Walmart issued the following three findings about consumer attitudes toward AI:
- Traditional search methods still reign supreme: Despite advances in AI and generative AI. shopping tools, the majority of shoppers still initiate their searches by manually typing into a traditional search bar. Social is the second most common method, meaning AI is not the default search entry point.
- Trust in AI varies by product category: Walmart research shows that shoppers are more comfortable using digital assistants for lower stakes purchases like household essentials. But when it comes to big-ticket or emotionally significant items, AI hits a trust barrier.
- AI can recommend — but not replace — human decision-making: Close to half (46%) of respondents said they were either somewhat unlikely or very unlikely to use a digital assistant or agent to handle an entire shopping trip for them.
