Omnisend 发布电商 AI 信任调研报告：消费者期待效率但要求保留最终审批权

Shoppers expect brands to improve shopping experiences with AI, but they also want brands to be upfront about their data and leave the last click to them, even as AI trust in ecommerce grows. 

According to Omnisend’s 2026 Handing shopping over to AI report, shoppers are far more relaxed about AI handling their purchases than they were a year ago. We surveyed 4,000 consumers in the United States, the UK, Canada, and Australia, and found that 74–80% are comfortable letting AI handle transactions. While this data shows a degree of trust in AI, most consumers attach conditions to AI use in ecommerce, such as approving each order or capping what AI can buy on their behalf.

Below, you’ll find what shoppers told Omnisend about AI and the changes you can make in your own store, like labeling your chatbot as AI or asking customers to approve an AI-built cart before checkout.

What is AI trust in ecommerce?

AI trust in ecommerce is a shopper’s confidence that an AI feature, and the store behind it, will look after their data, be transparent about how and why AI is involved, and act in their best interests. In Omnisend’s 2026 survey, only 10–14% of shoppers reported having no concerns about AI in online shopping.

Ecommerce shoppers meet AI throughout the customer journey. Common AI marketing examples include product recommendations, chatbots, personalized emails, customer service assistants, and ordering agents. In each of these AI uses, shoppers are asked to rely on a machine’s judgment. AI trust does not carry over from one feature to the next. For instance, a shopper can follow a store’s size suggestions and still block it from tracking their visits. 

What makes an AI shopping experience trustworthy?

An AI shopping experience is trustworthy when it provides accurate information, explains its recommendations, protects customer data, and allows the shopper to opt out or speak with a staff member. Since each of these qualities is within a store’s control, you can check and improve them yourself.

The fact that customers feel confident doesn’t necessarily mean that your AI system is trustworthy. Even a tool that sounds sure of itself can still give them wrong answers. Test these qualities yourself rather than relying on customer satisfaction alone.

How much do shoppers trust AI in ecommerce?

In ecommerce, customers tend to trust AI for research and comparison, but still want the final say on purchases and demand clear answers about their data. That’s according to our 2026 Handing shopping over to AI report.

For this report, research firm Cint surveyed 4,000 people in January 2026, spread across the United States, the UK, Canada, and Australia. The respondents reflected each country’s population in age, gender, and region, and figures are accurate to within 3 percentage points.

The research found that between 56% and 67% of shoppers in each market had used generative AI to shop online in the six months leading up to Omnisend’s 2026 survey. 

Saving time is the most common reason shoppers use AI, given by 47–54% of respondents. Another 40–45% say AI makes shopping easier, and close to a third say it reduces decision fatigue.

Shoppers are also reasonably confident in AI’s ability to recommend products. 42–52% say ChatGPT is better than search engines at recommending products, while 13–18% prefer AI recommendations to their friends’. However, how far that trust goes depends on the task. Shoppers who happily let a chatbot compare prices still worry about what it does with their personal details. 

Shoppers accept AI assistance but still want control

Shoppers would allow AI to do the buying, but most want to check the order first. In 2025, 68% of respondents in the four countries surveyed said they were comfortable with AI handling a transaction. This figure has risen in 2026 to 74–80% across these countries.

Most of that comfort depends on an approval step or a limit on what AI can buy, such as routine orders only. Depending on the market, 34–40% of shoppers worry that AI could complete a purchase they never intended to make. Just 13–16% would let it reorder products automatically without checking with them first.

In practice, your AI can build the cart or remind a customer they’re running low on coffee, as long as the customer gets the final click. However, only a small minority of shoppers are ready to give AI access to a saved card or permission to reorder whenever it sees fit.

Data privacy and unclear recommendations undermine trust

Data privacy concerns and unclear recommendations are the biggest barriers to trust in AI in online shopping. Across all four countries, between 45% and 51% of shoppers say their top worry is how their data is collected or how AI recommendations are generated.

Trust depends on clearly stating which data AI is using. When an AI assistant has suggested waterproof socks because it knows a shopper bought hiking boots last month, be upfront about this data usage. After all, 43% of U.S. respondents in Omnisend’s survey said they’d share their browsing history with AI.

Make sure all disclosures of data use by AI are clearly worded, and that shoppers have consented to them. Then provide your shoppers with preference controls and give them the ability to review any AI-assisted decisions.

Biased, sponsored, and personalized outcomes concern shoppers

Around a third of shoppers worry that AI sets prices or picks products to benefit the store, and 28–31% worry about biased or sponsored recommendations. “Is this the best blender for me, or the one with the fattest margin?” Plenty of shoppers ask themselves that when an AI makes a pick. 

If AI charged different customers different prices for the same product, 66–70% of shoppers say they’d cut back on engagement, stop shopping with the brand, or leave a negative review. Only 8–9% said it wouldn’t change their behavior.

Keep AI personalization to product suggestions and email content, and charge every shopper the same price for the same product.

How can ecommerce brands build trust in AI?

Ecommerce brands build trust in AI by being transparent about how their AI uses customer data, verifying what it tells shoppers, and keeping customers in charge of purchases. Each AI feature also needs an accountable owner on the team. 

Disclose when and how AI is being used

Disclose AI use wherever a shopper would otherwise assume a person is behind it. Follow best practices in AI transparency by making sure customers know your support chat that introduces itself as “Emma” is a bot. The same goes for a “Staff picks” shelf stocked by AI rather than by your staff, and for AI-generated content like product descriptions, review summaries, and images.

One line in the chat window’s greeting is often enough, for example: “Hi, I’m an AI assistant. Type ‘agent’ at any point to talk to someone on our team.” Shoppers learn right away who they’re talking to and how to reach a person if the bot gives them a wrong answer.

If you sell into the European Union (EU), there’s also the law to think about. The AI Act’s transparency rules came into effect on August 2, 2026, and one of them says people have to be told when they’re talking to an AI system unless it’s obvious. Your chatbot provider should be able to tell you how their tool complies, but it’s worth running your setup past a lawyer too.

Explain how customer data supports AI personalization

Put the reason for AI use right under the product. Something as simple as “Because you bought trail running shoes in March” is enough. Now your customer knows what you drew on to make the suggestion and can decide for themselves whether it’s any good.

A size recommender has every reason to ask about past sizes and returns, but no reason to know a shopper’s precise location. So data minimization is important. Collect only the data a feature needs to personalize recommendations effectively.

Give shoppers control over their data and purchasing decisions

Give shoppers control by letting them correct recommendations, choose what data you track, and approve every purchase. Say someone buys a birthday present for a friend’s toddler, and their feed blows up with toddler toys for weeks. A button to remove that purchase from their recommendations fixes it in one click. You can also put a “Not interested” option on individual suggestions to do the same for one-off misses.

In Omnisend, you can ensure your shoppers have consented to any tracking by going to Store settings → Connected store and choosing Wait for consent before tracking. Tracking cookies then stay off a visitor’s device until they say yes. When you set up consent signals, your cookie banner passes each visitor’s choice straight to Omnisend. 

Higher-risk actions like purchases and payments should always require explicit approval. Your AI can build the cart, but the payment should only go through after the customer checks and confirms the order. Some shoppers like to set up automatic reorders, and with these, ensure there is a monthly cap and a message each time a new order goes out.

Keep human support available

Keep a person available for complaints, payment problems, account access, and data requests, which chatbots handle poorly. Chatbots are great at “Where’s my order?”, but pretty bad at “You charged me twice, and I’m annoyed.” When a customer is locked out of their account or wants their data deleted, a member of your team must verify who’s requesting it, so leave these tasks to a real person.

Put a “Talk to our team” button in the chat window from the start. Without one, customers end up typing “human” over and over and hoping the bot takes the hint. When someone from support picks up, they should see everything the customer already told the bot, including the order number.

Test AI outputs for accuracy, fairness, and relevance

Test AI outputs for accuracy, fairness, and relevance before launch and on a regular schedule after it. Ahead of launch, run your chatbot through the questions customers ask most, such as return windows, delivery times, and sizing, and check each answer against your current policies.

Keep reading the bot’s chats after launch, even if it’s only a few a week. Somewhere in there you’ll find it recommending the jacket that sold out on Tuesday, or offering one region a smaller discount than the rest. Both are easy to fix once you know about them.

Read emails written with Omnisend AI the way you’d read a draft from a new copywriter. For a launch email for linen shirts, this means checking the fabric description and confirming that the 15% code is the one you set up in your store. Every AI tool you run should also have someone on your team who owns it and fixes its slip-ups.

Monitor practical customer trust signals

Monitor how customers respond to your AI features, as most stores lack a direct way to measure AI trust. Customers leave plenty of clues, though:

• More people than usual switching off personalized recommendations
• A jump in unsubscribes or spam complaints the day after an AI-written campaign goes out
• Support tickets that begin with “the chat told me…”
• Customers typing “agent” or “human” within their first couple of messages
• Lower satisfaction scores on chats the bot handled than on ones your team handled
• Reviews that grumble about the recommendations, the prices, or “that useless bot”

Look at these signals for a few weeks before you switch on a new AI feature, then again afterward. A spike in unsubscribes during Black Friday week has more to do with the flood of promos in everyone’s inbox than with your AI-written subject lines, so check what else changed before you pull the plug.

The future of AI trust in ecommerce

The future of AI trust in ecommerce depends on brands gradually giving AI more purchasing power, as each safeguard proves itself. Shopper comfort is climbing fast, from 68% to 74–80% in a single year in Omnisend’s research, while AI shopping agents keep taking on more of the checkout process.

Rising comfort still isn’t a green light for full autopilot. A staged rollout lets shoppers get used to each new AI role before the next one arrives.

Ultimately, AI has to reliably support customers’ decisions before shoppers will trust it to make decisions for them.

AI trust FAQs

Is it safe to share personal data with AI shopping tools?

No, sharing personal data with AI shopping tools isn’t automatically safe. A gift-ideas bot has no use for your home address when all you’ve asked for is a scarf suggestion, so leave that field blank. Give a tool more information only if its privacy page explains what data it stores and how to delete it.

What makes consumers trust AI?

Consumers trust AI when it’s transparent, accurate, respects their data, and leaves them in control. Most shoppers in our 2026 survey were happy to let AI handle a purchase, but only with an approval step or a spending limit. People also want to know where a recommendation came from, since how their data is gathered and how picks are chosen were the biggest worries we recorded.

What should shoppers do if an AI recommendation is wrong?

Double-check any incorrect or questionable AI recommendation against the product page before you buy, especially the size, price, compatibility, and delivery date. Update your preferences if the store lets you, and dismiss suggestions that miss the mark. If the mistake affects an order, payment, or account, contact the store’s support team directly.

Can AI be 100% trusted?

No, AI can’t be 100% trusted. For instance, an AI assistant can recommend a laptop charger that doesn’t fit your model and sound completely sure about it. When you’re only comparing prices, an occasional slip costs little, but when AI is placing orders or handling card details, a real person should be checking its work.

The post AI trust in ecommerce: What shoppers expect from brands appeared first on Omnisend Blog.