Shoppers are using AI at the top of the funnel
This week’s 5 stories include new data on AI use in commerce, how & why people shop on TikTok, Spotify’s new playlists for local gigs, and how some of our Gen Z colleagues think about key trends in media.
Some interesting new research and data from Adobe, who looked at more than 1 trillion visits to US retail sites, and polled 5,000 US internet users to see how AI is being used in shopping.? Nearly 40% of their respondents claim to have used AI tools in their online shopping, with over 50% planning to this year.? Traffic to retail sites from AI tools is still ‘modest’ compared to other sources like paid search and email, it is doubling every 2 months, and was 1,200% higher in February 2025 and in July 2024.? Once visitors arrive at sites they are more likely to stay longer and view more pages, but less likely to transact, suggesting that the tools are most used for more ‘upper funnel’ research rather than immediate buying.? The research (essentially a blog post) also looks at the Travel and Finance categories.
A new report by affiliate platform PartnerCentric looks at the continued growth of TikTok Shop in the US, based on a survey of 1,000 Americans aged 18-60.? Some of the stats seem pretty outlandish - the survey claims that 37% of Americans under 60 have purchased something on TikTok Shop, averaging $59 per purchase, with an average number of purchases of 12 per year (which feels very high).? However it gets more interesting when they look at categories, with the top ones being personal accessories, household items, fashion items, makeup/cosmetics and technology.? Nearly 1 in 4 surveyed said they had made an impulse purchase, with ‘easy to purchase’ and ‘low price’ being the main motivations for shopping.? Nearly half of purchases were made as a result of influencer posts, and 63% said they took advice or suggestions from influencers.
Spotify has introduced a new algorithmic recommendation playlist combining personal recommendations with time and location to create a weekly list of 30 tracks from artists that have gigs scheduled nearby.? As they say, ‘There’s nothing worse than realizing that your favorite artist played your town last week’.? My own recommendations aren’t that great - I’m in London and one of the recs is for TV on the Radio at Glastonbury, which is a) over 130 miles away, and b) already sold out, but for people very active on Spotify it must surface all sorts of interesting bands playing more locally, and the one song per artist would help sell the gig.? The new service includes a partnership with ticketing sites, so that users can easily click to buy tickets, and this could potentially be quite a money spinner if people start to adopt this as the main way they find out about gigs.
In 5 markets - United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Spain, and Poland - Google is letting kids pay for things in-store on their Android phones - with parental supervision.? Parents need to put in a payment card, and will then receive notification every time a payment is made.? Online purchases are not allowed!? (Apple already has this feature through its Apple Cash Family feature.)? This is clearly a nice perk to be able to give a child, and also potentially a very good safety measure in an emergency, but it is also likely to create a divide between kids who are allowed to and those who aren’t, even before you look at spending limits etc.??
We have just published a new report, asking Gen Z staff around the network to give us their views on the topics and trends in our annual report, including how they use AI, what they think of streaming and connected TV, and lots more.? It’s free to download - please take a look.