Leading retailers including Amazon, Walmart, Gap, and Levi Strauss are expanding AI implementations across their operations, and consumer comfort with these tools is growing. A new report, "AI Spotlight: Optimizing Data for Agentic Commerce," surveyed 1,081 online shoppers during the first half of 2026 (Digital Commerce 360 - AI). When asked about retailers' use of AI, 23.3% of shoppers said they were very comfortable, and another 32.5% said they were somewhat comfortable, with familiarity centered on recommendations, chatbots, and automated assistants.
However, a significant transparency gap exists around data handling. When asked how clear retailers are about personal data usage in AI-driven shopping, only 17.3% of shoppers said merchants were "very clear," while 29.3% said somewhat clear (Digital Commerce 360 - AI). More than 46% reported that data treatment was either "not very clear" or "not clear at all." This clarity gap represents a key opportunity for merchants to build trust and loyalty through improved communications and policies.
Shoppers expressed specific concerns about which data types are collected: 67.0% flagged payment and financial information as a top concern, followed by location data (63.8%) and personal details like names and contact information (61.0%) (Digital Commerce 360 - AI). Browsing behavior and purchase history generated far less concern, suggesting merchants can focus transparency efforts on the data categories that matter most to consumers.