CivicScience has the world’s largest proprietary database of real-time declared intent, allowing brands to activate high-performing advertising that drives up to 80% better performance. See how CivicScience partners achieve superior marketing outcomes here.
AI agents are inserting themselves into the shopping process whether or not brands want them to. Not planning for that means retailers lose visibility into traffic, attribution, and margins. The CivicScience Agentic Retail Report captures continuous data on critical agentic benchmarks to help retail and e-commerce teams make real-time budget decisions based on data from shoppers, not AI simulations of them.
CivicScience Founder and CEO John Dick was joined by Unser Advisory Group Founder Don Unser for an in-depth webinar on the new report and its implications for retailers. Access a clip of the webinar and schedule a meeting to get the full report here.
1. ChatGPT more than doubles other AI platforms in product discovery and research
Since the beginning of 2026, ChatGPT has seen a six-point growth in usage, making it the top platform that U.S. adults turn to when discovering and researching products. Nearly half (48%) of Americans say it is their primary platform, which is more than double that of any other. Google Gemini takes second place, but only captures 21% of users. Claude, Perplexity, and Meta AI are all under 10% as of Q3 2026, and are the least commonly used.*
*Note: This data was collected before Meta’s Muse gained popularity.
2. Grocery and electronics purchases are the top categories for AI-assisted shopping, but beauty/health tie for the top spot among women.
Tied for the top spot, grocery and electronics are the most common categories where Americans use AI-assisted shopping (32% each). While grocery shopping is a routine activity for most Americans, electronics’ strong showing may reflect the younger demographic of agentic shoppers. However, notable differences emerge by gender. Health and beauty tie with grocery as the top categories for women (34% each), highlighting the growing role of AI in beauty-related product discovery and research. Among men, electronics take the lead at 36%, ahead of grocery (30%).
3. Americans who use AI agents for shopping are a high-value, brand-loyal audience.
Americans who use AI agents for product research and shopping are more likely to be ‘very’ brand loyal than those who haven’t. Forty-percent say they are ‘very’ loyal to their favorite brands (compared to 24% of non-AI users) and in total, 90% are at least ‘somewhat’ loyal. They are also spending more in the short term. In the past seven days, 52% of agentic AI users say their spending has been higher than usual, compared to 40% of AI intenders and 22% of those not interested.
The combination of highly loyal and active buyers matters as AI plays an increasingly large role in how Americans shop today. As adoption grows, so does the importance of understanding this high-intent audience and how it makes purchase decisions. Learn more about the Agentic Retail Report, and see a clip from the webinar, here.
