AI

Poor online brand search driving consumers to tap AI assistants

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September 29, 2026

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Poor online search experiences on retail e-commerce sites is prompting shoppers to switch to AI assistants such as ChatGPT. That's a prime finding of a survey from Nosto, an agentic commerce experience platform.

The survey polled 2,000 consumers in the U.S. and U.K. and revealed 9% admit they often leave e-commerce stores because the onsite search is poor with 40% likely to switch to AI assistants.

The same proportion (40%) already view AI assistants as more helpful than search tools on many online shopping sites, according to a press release. Nosto commissioned market research company Censuswide to conduct the survey.

"Consumers' expectations about e-commerce onsite search are likely to have been raised by their experience of using AI assistants. This may explain why four in ten now say they are likely to leave e-commerce stores for the likes of ChatGPT or Claude when they're not happy with the onsite search results. It's a wake-up call for retailers to improve their search or risk driving shoppers away," Tuukka Häkkinen, chief product officer at Nosto, said in the release.