New research from Sinch AB (publ.), shows a nuanced picture of shoppers’ attitudes to AI ahead of Black Friday and the holiday season: broader concerns remain, while confidence is high when AI is used for specific, practical tasks. Among 2,501 consumers across eight markets, only 43 per cent think AI will make their holiday shopping easier this year, down from 48 per cent in 2025. Privacy remains shoppers’ top reservation about AI for the second year running, cited by 43 per cent, and just 7 per cent say they have no concerns about it at all.
That caution does not carry over once the task is specific. 81 per cent of shoppers say they are confident an AI assistant can handle order tracking and shipping updates, while 74 per cent say the same for pre-purchase questions. Confidence is lower, but still substantial, for account changes (66 per cent) and payment or billing changes (62 per cent).
Shoppers are also open to interacting with AI. Of the 2,501 people surveyed, only one said they would never want to interact with an AI chatbot under any circumstance. The most popular use cases were order tracking (48 per cent), researching a product before buying (47 per cent), and getting customer service (36 per cent).
“AI for AI’s sake doesn’t land with shoppers, but AI attached to a job they actually want done does. 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,” said Robert Gerstmann, Chief Evangelist and Co-Founder of Sinch.
Trust follows a similar split when AI gives advice rather than just information. 53 per cent of shoppers trust a real person’s product recommendation over AI’s, while 47 per cent trust AI just as much or more. For voice interactions, 48 per cent trust a human phone agent over an AI voice agent, while 37 per cent trust the AI equally or more.
Confidence in AI also varies sharply by market. The US is the most AI-sceptical market surveyed: just 26 per cent of shoppers think AI will make their holiday shopping easier, and 43 per cent say it won’t. Brazil is at the opposite end, with 78 per cent of the surveyed shoppers saying AI will make their shopping easier this year.
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