AI is quickly becoming part of the everyday shopping journey.
Minty's 2026 AI Shopper Study found that 77% of shoppers plan to use AI for Back-to-School shopping, while nearly half already use AI for most of their online purchases.
And they aren't just asking for product recommendations. Shoppers are using AI to compare options, find better prices, validate deals, stretch their budgets, and decide where to buy.
To understand what that shift looks like in practice, we surveyed shoppers on how they're using AI throughout the purchase journey. The result: nine distinct shopping behaviors that show where AI is influencing decisions, often before a shopper ever reaches a product page.
The Shift: From Search Results to AI Conversations
Traditional search gives shoppers a list of results and leaves much of the comparison work to them.
AI shopping is changing that experience. Shoppers can describe exactly what they need, ask follow-up questions, compare products and prices, factor in savings, and narrow dozens of possibilities into a few strong options within a single conversation.
As a result, more of the consideration process can happen before a shopper visits a brand's website.
That changes where and how brands need to show up.
The 9 Ways Shoppers Are Using AI to Buy
Shoppers are using AI across the entire purchase journey, often in more than one way.
Comparison Analysis — 66%.
Shoppers use AI to compare products, brands, and retailers side by side, weighing pros, cons, pricing, features, and overall value rather than relying on specs alone.
Optimize Product Search — 65%.
Instead of browsing broad categories, shoppers can describe exactly what they're looking for and have AI narrow the options based on factors like price, availability, discounts, and cashback.
Discovery Deal Search — 65%.
AI is also becoming a starting point for open-ended deal hunting. Rather than checking retailers one by one, shoppers can ask where the strongest offers are available right now.
Shopping Education — 61%.
For unfamiliar or higher-consideration purchases, shoppers use AI to understand what to look for, what a fair price is, when to buy, and which factors should influence their decision.
Personalized Curation — 60%.
Instead of sorting through dozens of products, shoppers ask AI to create a shorter list based on their budget, preferences, lifestyle, and specific needs.
Purchase Optimization — 55%.
Once shoppers know what they want, AI can help them determine the best place to buy it by comparing prices, coupons, cashback, shipping, and other offers.
Budget Optimization — 54%.
Shoppers are using AI to make a fixed budget go further, whether that's building a Back-to-School shopping list or prioritizing purchases across multiple products and retailers.
Deal Validation — 54%.
Before buying, shoppers use AI to evaluate whether an offer is actually competitive, whether a product has been cheaper before, or whether it may be worth waiting.
Dupe Search — 53%.
AI makes it easier to find similar products at different price points. For premium brands, that raises the importance of clearly communicating what justifies the difference. For challenger brands, it creates an opportunity to surface as a strong alternative.
What This Means for Brands
The biggest takeaway is that the product page is no longer always the beginning of the shopping journey.
Consumers may already have compared brands, narrowed their options, evaluated pricing, and validated an offer before arriving on a retailer's site.
For brands, that makes visibility within AI-assisted shopping increasingly important. Product information, pricing, availability, reviews, offers, and cashback all contribute to the signals shoppers are using to make decisions.
The easier that information is to discover and understand, the easier it becomes for AI platforms to surface a brand when a shopper asks for the best product, price, or overall value.
Brands that can show up during those earlier moments of consideration have a better chance of making the shortlist before the shopper is ready to buy.
Download the full 2026 AI Shopper Study to explore all nine behaviors, the complete findings, and what they mean for brands navigating AI-assisted shopping.
Minty is the AI shopping companion that proactively unleashes savings for smart shoppers, creating more loyalty for the eCommerce brands they shop. As the pioneer of Proactive Commerce, Minty has 100's of millions of shoppers and is ranked a top 5 eCommerce tool