This segment from the Omni Talk Retail Fast Five, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Infios, and Quorso, explores survey data showing nearly half of AI search users prefer these tools over Google. Chris and Anne discuss implications for retail discovery and the coming agentic AI revolution.
25:56 – 45% prefer AI tools over Google for clarity and speed
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
Transcripts
Speaker A:
A new survey has revealed, Chris, that almost half of AI search tool users prefer them to Google.
Speaker A:
According to ChainStorage, a new report from the SEO agency Ethical, Google remains the dominant search platform with 86% of survey respondents in the US and the United Kingdom are using it to find information.
Speaker A:
However, AI powered search tools are widely adopted with 81% of participants using using them in the past three months.
Speaker A:
Younger consumers, 63% of Gen Z and 68% of millennials use AI tools frequently, compared to less than half.
Speaker A:
46% of baby boomers.
Speaker A:
Almost 45% of those surveyed say that AI tools provide a superior experience to Google in terms of speed and clarity, with 15% saying it is, quote, much better than and 29% saying it is slightly better.
Speaker A:
I got one more.
Speaker A:
Nearly 60%.
Speaker A:
Nearly 60% of respondents told Ethical that they use AI tools to research products or services before buying.
Speaker B:
60% though, that's a lot.
Speaker A:
Yes.
Speaker A:
Chris, are you surprised that almost half of AI search tool users prefer them to Google and AI search tools as we're talking about it?
Speaker A:
ChatGPT perplexity.
Speaker A:
Yeah, Gemini.
Speaker A:
Whatever you want to.
Speaker B:
Whatever your flavor is.
Speaker A:
Whatever your flavor is.
Speaker A:
Whatever your flavor is.
Speaker A:
Yes.
Speaker B:
I'm not surprised.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
Are you surprised?
Speaker B:
No, no, I'm not surprised.
Speaker B:
Not at all.
Speaker B:
And I mean, just the amount of times my mother and my wife and my friends use it.
Speaker B:
Like, I'm not surprised by this at all.
Speaker B:
My big question for me, and I'm curious about this because I've seen a lot of people start to poo poo this on LinkedIn, particularly some people that I really respect.
Speaker B:
I'm not gonna call them out here.
Speaker B:
Cause I want to actually talk to them first before I do.
Speaker B:
But they've been poo poohing the movement towards agentic AI.
Speaker B:
And so what I think is really interesting about this is the agentic AI movement.
Speaker B:
We're not even in any one of that yet.
Speaker B:
And that potentially is still going to happen.
Speaker B:
So depending on how that takes off, this will amplify those numbers even more as people get acclimated to what that is, how it works and what it can do for you.
Speaker A:
Right.
Speaker B:
So I'm buying this headline.
Speaker B:
I think it's very important.
Speaker B:
It's very disruptive and it's only going to become more disruptive.
Speaker B:
And to all the naysayers out there, I'd say I want to discount this so fast.
Speaker A:
I know you're.
Speaker B:
I think you're kind of risking things a little bit there.
Speaker B:
I'd be hedging on this.
Speaker A:
Yeah, well.
Speaker A:
And you can't even transact in some of these yet.
Speaker A:
Like that's the thing too.
Speaker A:
Like they're already getting this much traffic when you can't even just click and buy in all of them yet.
Speaker A:
So I think as you as that, that process becomes more fluid and you can do that without having to leave that, that search engine.
Speaker A:
I think that's really where things are going to continue to light up.
Speaker A:
And the other thing, and I'm teasing, we have an amazing podcast coming up with David Dorff next week of Amazon the Other Time.
Speaker A:
The Other Time I want to look back at this data, Chris, is after the holidays, because I'm curious now that we've had ChatGPT or large language search in all of our lives for over a year, pretty widely adopted.
Speaker B:
Oh yeah.
Speaker A:
Now I'm curious to see how much this increases after the holidays and during gift giving season, because I would venture to guess that we're going to start to see even more adoption as more people start to use this because it's so valuable.
Speaker A:
It's a much better experience.
Speaker A:
You get much better results.
Speaker A:
The only missing link for me right now is that transacting in the market.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
And that's going to come now, whether the agentic part, how that plays into it and how that disruptive that is.
Speaker B:
Yes, but that's a great point.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
Like, you know, holiday shopping, E commerce always increases during the holidays.
Speaker B:
Every year.
Speaker B:
The percentage of commerce that goes to E commerce always goes up.
Speaker A:
Well, even Ryan Hamburger yesterday from Instacart who we interviewed, I mean, one thing about it, one thing that occurred to me there is it's like they are already thinking.
Speaker A:
If you aren't thinking about how you're going to prepare for a world where agents are shopping on behalf of your customers and customers are still shopping, you, you're going to be in a whole heap of trouble, I think come, you know, even six months or a year from now, you know.
Speaker B:
And newsflash, there's in my opinion there's no surprise that Instacart CEO Chris Rogers was out in the media this week saying that retailers need to keep their prices the same in store as they are on Instacart.
Speaker B:
And why is that?
Speaker B:
Because of the eventuality of agentic AI coming, because they're going to get stripped away if they don't do that.
Speaker B:
So they're preparing for that eventuality, at least as part of the reasoning for that.
