Statistics from the 2025 holiday shopping season clearly show that AI is playing a huge role in how people shop. But new research from retail payment platform Adyen found that many consumers are ready for AI to become their personal shopper. Just over half—51%—said they’re open to letting AI take over the entire shopping process, including making final purchases.

Millennials are the most willing to let agents do their shopping, with nearly three in five saying they are ready for such a shift. But more than half of Gen Xers say they want AI shoppers, and nearly half of Gen Zers do as well. Meanwhile, just over a quarter of Baby Boomers are willing to let AI take over their carts.

For many shoppers, this isn’t necessarily an absolute handover. There are still deep concerns about how well AI will perform the task at hand, as well as how trustworthy the system is. There are many—45%—who would want to know from the start who would be accountable if AI purchased the wrong item or if the item had problems. And two out of five would want to know the AI assistant’s reasoning for selecting particular items. About the same amount—42%—are concerned about data privacy when it comes to AI making purchases. And 43% worry about losing control over shopping as a whole; they prefer to do the browsing and decision making themselves.

On the retailer side of the equation, an overwhelming 88% are open to agentic AI commerce, and 56% see it as a top strategic priority. But, again, retailers are not necessarily ready to go into this blindly, and trust is a factor on their end as well. A total of 38% want to know they’ll see a clear ROI before putting such a strategy into place, and the same amount are concerned about data security with a new commerce system being added.

Carlo Bruno, VP of product at Adyen, said in a statement that retailers are also concerned about AI taking away their personal connections with customers. “The way forward is to make sure AI is a powerful additive channel that offers shoppers a new way to transact, while ensuring the retailer remains in control of the customer relationship and data,” he said. “The biggest hurdle isn’t the technology, it’s the relationship.”

Technology has shaped every aspect of marketing, including for the staple CPGs that everyone shops for on a regular basis. I talked to Chris Riedy, chief revenue officer at CPG promotional app and platform Ibotta, about how it’s been changing, and what companies need to do to market to today’s consumer. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.

Most people have expected OpenAI to start some sort of advertising or sponsorship program, since the company is spending billions of dollars on expanding infrastructure and is nowhere near to breaking even, let alone being profitable. The company announced Friday that in the coming weeks, they will start testing ads in ChatGPT’s free tier and for its $8/month Go subscribers. In an announcement on X, the company said that ads would not influence the chatbot’s responses, and ads will be separate and clearly labeled. Individual ChatGPT conversations will not be shared with advertisers, and data to personalize ads can be kept private.

In a post on X, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote that he likes the types of ads on Meta’s Instagram, which he’s found useful. And CFO Sarah Friar wrote in a blog post that the company intends for ads to be relevant and valuable to users—just like the answers people get from ChatGPT.

“Across every path, we apply the same standard,” Friar wrote. “Monetization should feel native to the experience. If it does not add value, it does not belong.”

As the first major AI company to introduce advertising to its chatbot, Forbes contributor Anisha Sircar writes OpenAI’s move could be a watershed moment in AI development. A company blog post shows potential examples of ads. Many of the ideas are separate windows at the bottom of an answer to a query that is related in some way. A question about........

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