AI is already influencing how consumers discover products and make decisions. But a brand new global study from Klaviyo shows something marketers should pay closer attention to: usage is rising quickly, while trust will not be.
The “Klaviyo AI Persona Research,” based on a survey of nearly 8,000 consumers, found 60% now use AI tools at the least weekly. At the identical time, only 13% say they completely trust AI.
That gap is where the true marketing story sits.
Consumers are clearly incorporating AI into how they research and evaluate products. But they’re doing so cautiously, treating AI as an input relatively than an authority.
AI is influencing purchases faster than trust is growing
AI is already affecting real buying behavior.
The study found that 41% of consumers purchased a product really useful by AI inside the past six months. Another 27% say AI introduced them to a product they later researched further before buying.
In other words, AI is already operating as a discovery layer.
More than one in five consumers now begin with AI tools once they need to learn something recent, solve an issue or evaluate a purchase order. For marketers, which means AI is increasingly acting as the primary touchpoint in the client journey.
However, trust within the technology is growing rather more slowly than adoption. Consumers are using AI to narrow selections and gather ideas, but many still need to confirm the outcomes before acting on them.
Four AI personas reveal how consumers balance usage and trust
Klaviyo’s research groups consumers into 4 personas based on two aspects: how often they use AI and the way much they trust it.
AI Enthusiasts mix high usage with relatively high trust. This group represents about 26% of consumers globally and is already incorporating AI into on a regular basis decision-making.
Among Enthusiasts, 89% say they used AI while shopping prior to now six months. Even more telling, 43% report purchasing multiple products that they had not previously known about because AI really useful them.
AI Evaluators also use AI often but approach it more cautiously. They are willing to depend on AI for research and comparisons, but they have a tendency to validate recommendations before acting.
Together, Enthusiasts and Evaluators account for nearly 70% of consumers.
The remaining personas reflect more skepticism.
AI Skeptics understand and sometimes use AI but remain wary of how it appears in marketing and brand interactions. AI Holdouts, who make up about 21% of consumers, rarely use AI for shopping and are inclined to prefer human guidance when making decisions.
The key takeaway is that the divide will not be simply between AI users and non-users. It is between consumers who trust AI, consumers who use it cautiously and consumers who remain skeptical.
Heavy AI users are also the quickest to criticize brands
One of the more revealing findings within the study is that the people most comfortable using AI are also essentially the most critical of it.
Among AI Enthusiasts, 40% say they notice low-quality or generic AI-generated marketing content multiple times per week.
That suggests frequent AI users have gotten expert at recognizing when brands rely too heavily on automation. As consumers spend more time interacting with AI tools, in addition they grow to be higher judges of what good outputs appear like.
For marketers experimenting with generative AI in content, customer support or personalization, that dynamic raises the stakes. Poor execution could also be noticed fastest by the very audience almost certainly to interact with AI-driven experiences.
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Consumers are interacting with AI more like a conversation partner
The research also highlights how AI is changing search behavior.
Traditional search queries were typically short and keyword-driven. AI prompts have gotten longer and more contextual.
Seventy-eight percent of consumers say they include emotional or personal context of their prompts at the least among the time. Thirty percent now use eight or more words when interacting with AI systems.
The trust gap will shape the following phase of AI marketing
The findings point to a straightforward but essential reality.
AI use is becoming mainstream, but trust is developing rather more slowly.
Consumers are comfortable using AI to explore ideas, compare products and discover recent options. Whether they trust the answers they receive will depend on the standard and usefulness of the experience.
For marketers, which means showing up in AI-driven discovery environments is barely a part of the challenge.
The harder task is earning the arrogance of consumers who’re still deciding how much to imagine in AI.
The full report might be downloaded here. (Registration required)
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