AI Shopping Assistants: 63% of Consumers Would Ditch Brand Loyalty for 20% Savings

A new survey of 2,000 U.S. adults reveals that 63% of consumers are willing to abandon brand loyalty in favor of AI shopping assistants that guarantee a 20% discount. For fintech professionals, this shift toward "agentic commerce" signals a fundamental change in customer acquisition and the critical importance of secure, merchant-controlled payment orchestration.

What was announced

The "State of Checkout 2026" report, conducted by Talker Research on behalf of Spreedly, highlights a growing willingness among American consumers to delegate purchasing decisions to artificial intelligence. The data suggests that the traditional relationship between brands and consumers is becoming increasingly transactional; 34% of Gen Z and 30% of Millennials stated they would forgo brand loyalty if an AI assistant could consistently secure the best products at the lowest prices. This sentiment is even stronger among parents with children under five, where 60% would allow AI to select brands for a 20% cost saving.

The research also identifies a significant shift in product discovery. While Google Search remains the most trusted source overall at 25%, followed by friends and family at 22%, the hierarchy flips for younger demographics. Among Gen Z respondents, 31% identified ChatGPT as their most trusted source for product research, significantly outperforming Google Search (12%), online reviews, and retailer websites. However, while consumers are open to AI-driven discovery, they remain protective of the final transaction. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of respondents would not permit an AI to spend money without explicit approval, and 58% refused to give AI agents direct access to their payment information, even for a guaranteed lowest price.

Security remains the primary hurdle for autonomous commerce. More than half of those surveyed (52%) cited fear of fraud as the main barrier to AI-led purchasing, followed by a lack of trust in AI companies (45%) and concerns regarding overspending (40%). When errors occur, 41% of consumers would hold the AI provider responsible, compared to just 13% for the retailer and 6% for the payment provider.

"Consumers may increasingly rely on an agent to decide which brand wins the purchase, but they still expect control when money moves. That changes the transaction environment for merchants."

Justin Benson, CEO of Spreedly.

The companies involved

Spreedly is a payments vault and orchestration platform designed to help organizations maintain ownership of their payment tokens. The company provides the infrastructure necessary to connect with various payment and fraud providers, routing transactions to optimize for AI-driven and agentic commerce. By decoupling the payment credentials from specific gateways, the platform allows merchants to maintain flexibility in how they handle transactions across different geographies and providers.

The company currently processes more than $60 billion in annual gross merchandise value (GMV) and serves a diverse client base of over 400 customers across more than 100 countries. Its platform is utilized by major global brands, including The New York Times, Priceline, Getty, Warner, Lemonade, Hopper, and CLEAR. In the current market, Spreedly positions itself as a critical layer for merchants who need to balance the automation of "agentic" shopping with the security and control required to prevent fraud and manage complex payment routing.

What FF News has reported before

FF News has tracked Spreedly’s focus on merchant control and the evolution of the checkout experience over several years. In October 2026, we covered the initial findings of this research in Agentic Commerce: 63% of Consumers Will Trade Brand Loyalty for AI-Driven Savings. This followed a significant product move in July 2026, when Spreedly Debuts Standalone Payment Vault to Give Merchants Control Over Payment Credentials, a launch aimed at providing businesses with greater autonomy over their sensitive data. Our earlier reporting from September 2025, New Survey: One in Four Companies Lose More Than $1 Million Annually at Online Checkout, highlighted the massive financial stakes involved in checkout optimization, noting that 25% of companies lose over $1 million annually due to friction at the final stage of the customer journey.

What this means

The rise of agentic commerce represents a pivot from "brand-first" to "math-first" retail. As consumers increasingly trust LLMs like ChatGPT over traditional search engines for product discovery, the industry is entering an era where algorithms, not advertising, dictate market share. This puts immense pressure on legacy brands to prove value through price and utility rather than historical affinity. However, the persistent "trust gap" regarding autonomous spending suggests that the fintech sector’s immediate challenge is not just enabling AI agents, but building the security frameworks that allow consumers to feel safe delegating the final click. The merchant who can bridge this gap between AI discovery and secure, human-approved execution will likely dominate the next decade of digital trade.