NIQ tracker crosses 50%: majority of U.S. shoppers now use AI to find products
September's Agentic Commerce Tracker reading, up from 42% in May, moves AI-assisted discovery from early-adopter behavior to the default top of the funnel.
Fifty-one percent of U.S. consumers used at least one AI-powered tool to shop in the past month, according to the September reading of NIQ’s Agentic Commerce Tracker released on September 24. The May reading was 42%. The line has moved.
“Crossing the 50 percent threshold is a defining moment for the industry,” said Liz Buchanan, NIQ’s president for North America. “Just months ago, AI-assisted shopping was viewed as an emerging behavior among early adopters. Today, it is now mainstream.” Her framing continued: “the path to purchase is rapidly evolving from search-driven to AI-driven.”
The composition matters more than the headline number. AI-powered product recommendations lead adoption at 20%, followed by AI personal shopping assistants at 16%. NIQ notes the behavior spans the full path to purchase, from product discovery through final purchase decisions, and describes AI as compressing decision-making so shoppers compare options, evaluate value, and narrow choices faster than before.
One statistical honesty: the monthly Quick Question survey draws roughly 500 U.S. consumers, with a margin of error near plus or minus 4.4 points. The 51% figure sits inside that band. The two-quarter arc from 42% to 51% is the durable signal.
The operational implication, as NIQ puts it, is that product content quality, digital discoverability, and structured product information are becoming as critical to sales performance as traditional merchandising and search visibility. Related work published the same day by AudioEye pointed the same direction from the plumbing side: AI agents completed 96% of tasks on an accessible test site versus 31% on an inaccessible one, and burned a median 43% more tokens fighting through pages without accessibility fixes.
Discovery has quietly relocated. The gatekeeper reading the product page first is no longer a shopper. It’s a model deciding whether the shopper ever sees the page.
Sources
- https://nielseniq.com/global/en/news-center/2026/majority-of-u-s-consumers-now-use-ai-to-shop-niq-finds/
- https://www.financialcontent.com/article/bizwire-2026-9-24-majority-of-us-consumers-now-use-ai-to-shop-niq-finds
- https://thenextweb.com/news/ai-shopping-51-percent-us-consumers-niq
- https://massmarketretailers.com/ai-assisted-shopping-goes-mainstream/
- https://agilebrandguide.com/yesterdays-martech-ai-cx-news-september-25-2026/