Where Consumers Give Brands Permission to Use AI

Comfort depends on what AI is doing

Consumers in our study did not react to every brand use of AI the same way. The clearest pattern was that comfort was higher when AI was helping with the shopping task and lower when it moved closer to the brand's own voice or identity.

Thirty-six percent said they were comfortable with AI helping compare products or services, and 32% were comfortable with AI providing recommendations based on browsing or purchase behavior. Comfort dropped to 20% for AI personalizing emails, texts, or notifications, 13% for AI writing advertising or brand content, and 10% for AI-generated influencers, avatars, or virtual spokespeople.

The gap is pretty large

There is a 26-point difference between comfort with AI helping compare products and comfort with AI-generated influencers or spokespeople. That does not mean consumers have a single hard line around AI, but it does show that the use case matters a lot.

The higher-comfort uses are more obviously tied to helping the shopper make a decision. The lower-comfort uses ask AI to do something that looks more like representing the company, speaking in its voice, or standing in for a person.

There is a middle ground

Personalization sits between those two ends. One in five consumers said they were comfortable with AI personalizing emails, texts, or notifications. That is below comparison and recommendations, but above AI-written brand content and virtual spokespeople.

That middle result is useful because it shows the pattern is not simply "helpful AI is good, visible AI is bad." Comfort appears to move depending on how much control or representation the AI is taking on.

What stands out in the data

Consumers were most comfortable when AI helped them compare or receive recommendations, and least comfortable when AI wrote brand content or became a spokesperson. That pattern is one of the clearest in the study.

The interesting part is not that consumers are "for" or "against" AI. It is that their comfort changes a lot depending on what the AI is being asked to do.

Read the full report:

https://www.lab42.com/ai-shopping-report

Source: Lab42 AI Consumer Study, 2026. Q43, base all consumers n=500.