64% of Online Shoppers Now Use AI Tools to Find Products: What Brands Must Do to Stay Visible

If your brand is not showing up in AI-powered search results, you may already be losing customers before they ever visit your site. A new study from Ryder found that 64% of online shoppers are now using AI tools to find and compare products before making a purchase.

What the Study Found

The Ryder study surveyed more than 1,100 shoppers and found that AI adoption is reshaping how consumers discover products online. Search and shopping assistants lead AI adoption at 45%, followed by customer review summarization tools at 37%. Visual and image-based search, voice assistants, and virtual try-on tools rounded out the list.

Key Takeaways

• AI is becoming the new search engine for shopping. Jeff Wolpov, Ryder Senior Vice President of E-commerce, noted that "nearly three in five consumers have begun replacing traditional search engines with generative AI search." Brands not optimized for these tools risk disappearing from consideration entirely.
• Convenience and experience now outrank price. The study found shoppers are placing greater value on delivery speed, flexible returns, and seamless experience — not just the lowest price. Retailers focused solely on price competition may be missing the bigger shift.
• Product discoverability is changing. The rise of AI shopping assistants means product content, metadata, and reviews need to be structured for AI parsing — not just traditional SEO.

As generative AI changes how people shop, the brands that win will be the ones that optimize their product discovery experience for how AI surfaces information — not just how Google ranks it.

Read the full article on WTVR / Scripps News