Shoppers back AI for order tracking but not for advice, survey finds

Consumer optimism about AI in holiday shopping has fallen, but confidence holds up when the technology is applied to narrow, practical tasks, according to research published by Sinch.

The Stockholm-listed communications company surveyed 2,501 consumers across eight markets and found that 43 percent expect AI to make their holiday shopping easier this year, down from 48 percent in 2025. Privacy and data use was the leading concern for the second consecutive year, cited by 43 percent, while only 7 percent reported no concerns at all.

Attitudes shift once a specific job is attached. Eighty-one percent said they were confident an AI assistant could handle order tracking and shipping updates, and 74 percent said the same of pre-purchase questions. Confidence dropped to 66 percent for account changes and 62 percent for payment or billing changes.

The split widens when AI moves from supplying information to giving advice. Fifty-three percent of respondents said they trusted a real person's product recommendation over an AI's, with 47 percent trusting AI equally or more. On voice, 48 percent said they trusted a human phone agent more than an AI voice agent.

"AI for AI's sake doesn't land with shoppers, but AI attached to a job they actually want done does," said Robert Gerstmann, chief evangelist and co-founder of Sinch. "Order tracking and pre-purchase questions are the easy wins, where confidence is already high. Payment, billing and account changes are different: shoppers still want a human close by, and brands need to make that handoff easy and obvious."

Outright rejection of the technology was rare in the sample. Sinch reported that one respondent out of 2,501 said they would never want to interact with an AI chatbot under any circumstance. The most commonly cited uses were order tracking at 48 percent, product research at 47 percent and customer service at 36 percent.

Attitudes diverged sharply by market. The United States was the most sceptical of those surveyed, with 26 percent expecting AI to make shopping easier and 43 percent saying it would not. Brazil was the most receptive, at 78 percent.

The survey covered the United States, with 698 respondents, Australia with 351, Brazil with 350, the United Kingdom with 252, France and Germany with 225 each, and Mexico and Spain with 200 each. It was conducted online by Sinch during 2026. India and Canada featured in the 2025 sample but were dropped this year.

This article was drafted with the assistance of AI and edited by a FashionUnited journalist.