61 million U.S. shoppers now start with AI, then buy on Amazon
AI is now a meaningful first stop in the shopping journey. 23% of U.S. consumers, roughly 61 million people, now start retail research with AI. Average spending on AI-assisted purchases rose 17% from $889 in June to $1,039 in August.
Here is the catch for anyone selling outside Amazon: 60% of AI-assisted purchases still close there. In a controlled test, 40% of consumers chose Amazon even when explicitly told another retailer offered the same product, price, shipping, and returns. Brand affinity and habit still outweigh AI recommendations at the point of purchase.
What Else Caught Our Attention
- SaaStr’s inbound AI agent held 17,000 conversations and booked roughly 600 meetings in a year. Combined with a self-serve agent, the two drove a 60% jump in new business. Three people built the whole setup.
- McDonald’s is piloting a media network across 450 U.S. company-owned restaurants, selling ad space on its app, kiosks, and menu boards. The goal is a billion-dollar business. It is roughly doubling spending on long-running brand and food quality programs while cutting short-term promotions.
- Google Veo lets advertisers turn existing static images into 5 or 10 second video ads for Performance Max and Demand Gen campaigns. It animates two images into sequential scenes and supports 16:9, 9:16, and 1:1 formats.
- AI search citations lean heavily on third-party voices. Less than 10% of what AI says about a brand comes from the brand’s own content. One in three AI answers cite creators directly. Notably, 57% of cited YouTube videos come from channels under 100K subscribers.
- CogSend is a free, open-source social media scheduler that covers Mastodon, Bluesky, LinkedIn, Threads, and X. It runs on your own Cloudflare account, so no monthly fee and you keep control of your data.
- Cold outreach tip: Send demo ads directly to a calendar booking page. Higher cost per lead, but lower cost per meeting booked.
- Gallup surveyed 37 countries on AI sentiment. The U.S. ranked most anxious: 74% worried about AI, and only 36% expect it to mostly help the country.
I’m founder of BizStack at Cagri Sarigoz LLC and a passionate advocate for entrepreneurs.
With over 14 years in tech, marketing, and AI, including my role as Head of SEO at CitizenShipper and co-founder of TaleBot at Intale AI, I’m dedicated to sharing genuine, useful product insights and tips.
At BizStack, I aim to cut through the digital noise to provide clear, actionable advice.
And more than all else, I’m a father to a (always) little girl and a husband.
Contact me at [email protected] for assistance.
