Generative AI is becoming an active participant in the purchase journey, helping consumers compare products, interpret information and select among alternatives. Based on a survey of 500 adults who use AI at least weekly and have used it for shopping or product research, the latest report in the ARF and MSI Psych of Gen AI series examines how much of the decision process consumers are willing to delegate, where they still insist on control and what their growing reliance on AI means for marketers.
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As retail media expands across onsite, offsite and in-store environments, buyers are looking beyond basic attribution to determine whether advertising is actually driving incremental sales. In a guest article for The Advertising Club of New York, Tracy Adams, PhD, ARF Senior Director of Research & Insights, examines findings from the second phase of the ARF Retail Media Network Standardization Project, revealing what advertisers and agencies say they need to make retail media measurement more comparable, transparent and trustworthy.
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As consumers add AI-powered search engines to their information routines, their behavior changes with the platform and purpose of the search. An observational study of 848 real-world searches found that traditional search still dominated, while AI-powered search was used more often for advice-seeking. It drew substantially longer queries and produced fewer outbound clicks. The findings suggest that advertisers may need to rethink long-tail keyword strategies, website optimization and ad models as search behavior becomes divided across traditional and generative platforms.
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