Talkdesk, a leader in Customer Experience Automation, announced Talkdesk Agent Builder, a natural language-driven tool that enables both business users and technical teams to oversee the complete lifecycle of their customer service AI agents. Customer experience leaders describe the outcome they want to achieve in plain language, and Agent Builder creates, tests, diagnoses, and validates the AI agent before it ever interacts with a customer. The result is a faster path to production, lower deployment risk, and the ability to build a trusted AI workforce in hours instead of weeks.

Building a production-ready AI agent has traditionally required weeks of iteration, testing, and tuning to keep it on topic. Agent Builder introduces a zero-prompt approach to AI agent development, compressing that process into hours and enabling organizations to rapidly build and scale a full AI workforce without sacrificing quality or control.

By functioning as a specialized agent-building agent, the platform automatically ingests an enterprise’s existing raw assets, such as standard operating procedures and policies, and translates them into high-precision logical instructions and structured guardrails. Once new AI agents are approved by a human operator and deployed, they are continuously monitored, evaluated, and governed through the CXA Operations Center. This complete framework helps organizations grow their AI workforce without multiplying their operational risk.

Also Read: AI Ads Will Win Only If They Earn Consumer Trust

The platform’s capabilities include plain-language agent creation, which allows operations teams to define an agent’s role, tone, behaviors, and edge cases using natural language, eliminating the need for prompt engineering or technical configuration. Pre-deployment validation automatically reviews instructions for consistency and completeness, surfaces gaps and ambiguities the team may have missed, and recommends specific actionable improvements before any agent reaches production. Simplified troubleshooting means that when an agent underperforms during testing or in production, Agent Builder diagnoses the issue, recommends fixes, and facilitates re-validation, with the highest-scoring version presented for human approval.

“You cannot simply deploy an AI agent into the wild and hope for the best,” said Munil Shah, Chief Product, Technology, and Customer Officer at Talkdesk. “Organizations need proof that an agent will follow instructions, stay on brand, and handle pressure before a real customer ever experiences it. Talkdesk Agent Builder provides that certainty. By systematically debugging and validating interactions against simulated datasets, we give enterprises the confidence to expand their operations with an AI workforce that’s trusted and reliable.”

Also Read: Your ERP Is Holding You Back. Here’s How to Fix It.

Talkdesk is showcasing Agent Builder and the broader Talkdesk Customer Experience Automation platform at Customer Contact Week Las Vegas, where Talkdesk CXA is a finalist for Automation Solution of the Year in the CCW Excellence Awards.

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Starbucks is expanding its Green Apron Creators program by launching a new creator network management tool developed in partnership with TikTok, set to pilot this summer. The tool will enable Starbucks to share content briefs and ad revenue directly with employee-creators, allowing baristas to earn money by creating content for the company while on its payroll.

“Every day, our partners bring Starbucks to life by creating moments of connection with our customers and with each other,” said Erin Silvoy, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at Starbucks. “And more than ever, they are sharing those moments with the world online in authentic, creative and unique ways.” The company hopes to use the new tool to celebrate and amplify that storytelling.

The move comes as employee-generated content gains serious traction as a marketing channel. In February, a Staples staff member named Kaeden began posting TikTok videos showcasing the surprisingly wide variety of things people can do at the office supply retailer, racking up millions of views and earning herself the nickname “Staples Baddie.” Her employer leaned in by amplifying her posts through its own TikTok account, turning an organic moment into a brand strategy.

Starbucks has been experimenting with employee content for several years. In 2024, the Seattle-based company began piloting Green Apron Creators. Last year, it hired two full-time content creators to travel to Starbucks locations around the world for 12 months and post about their experiences online.

Also Read: How Brands Turned the World Cup Into a Cultural Play

The company claims its employees already use social media at three times the rate of those at similar chains, suggesting an existing base of creators the program can tap into rather than cultivate from scratch.

“In addition to great content, it’s also a relevant development opportunity that resonates with Gen Z, which makes up a majority of our baristas,” said Tressie Leiberman, Starbucks’ Global Chief Brand Officer. “This helps drive sales and connection as the program enables us to extend the coffeehouse experience beyond the walls of our cafes.”

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Contentful, a leading digital experience platform trusted by more than 4,800 customers, announced the general availability of Palmata, a new offering designed to help organizations understand, measure, and improve how AI answer engines represent their company, so teams can confidently manage their brand’s reputation in the age of AI discovery.

As consumers increasingly turn to AI answer engines to research products, compare brands, and make purchase decisions, marketing leaders face a new challenge: AI systems are often forming impressions of companies before customers ever visit a website. While brands have spent years optimizing for search engines, they now must understand how AI systems discover, interpret, compare, and represent them.

Unlike traditional Answer Engine Optimization tools that primarily track visibility, rankings, and mentions, Palmata helps organizations understand the factors influencing AI-generated answers and provides clear, prioritized guidance on how to improve them. The platform enables teams to move beyond measurement and toward action, identifying the content decisions most likely to influence how their brand is represented over time.

Also Read: Payment Experience Is the Foundation of B2B Loyalty

“Understanding how AI systems represent your brand is only the first step,” said Tricia Gellman, CMO of Box. “Today’s buyer journey is increasingly invisible, with prospects researching solutions through AI long before they engage directly with a company. Marketers need to understand whether they’re showing up in those conversations or being left off the shortlist entirely. Palmata helps teams identify where they’re vulnerable, understand what actions will improve their AI reputation, and prioritize the opportunities that matter most.”

Palmata is powered by the proprietary Sounder Discovery Agent, which continuously observes, learns, and synthesizes signals that influence AI-generated answers by analyzing publicly available data. Through research across a company’s market, competitors, audiences, content footprint, and digital ecosystem, Palmata develops a deep understanding of the factors shaping AI discovery and reputation.

The platform’s key capabilities include Steering Control, which allows teams to focus research toward specific brands, products, competitors, audiences, segments, regions, and strategic priorities. “In AI search, the question that matters is whether AI describes you accurately, because the model answers with total confidence whether it’s right or wrong,” said Harry McIntosh, VP of Engineering at Telus Digital. “Palmata’s Steering Control lets us point it at the specific products, audiences, and competitors we care about, so we can see exactly what AI says we do and where it learned it.”

Also Read: Your ERP Is Holding You Back. Here’s How to Fix It.

Adaptive Deep Research continuously develops context around a business’s competitors, category, audiences, and digital landscape, uncovering the factors that shape AI discovery. “Palmata’s Adaptive Deep Research goes beyond broad monitoring and adapts to the complexity of our business,” said Jamie Bothwell, VP Marketing at DocuSign. “Rather than treating our company as a single brand, Palmata develops context around our category, audiences, and competitors that helps us understand how AI systems are representing each part of our portfolio.”

Recommended Actions translates research into prioritized steps, identifying the quick wins and strategic opportunities most likely to improve how brands appear in AI-generated answers. “Everyone is talking about visibility in AI search, but visibility alone doesn’t tell you what to do next,” said Alice McKown, Publisher and Chief Revenue Officer of The Atlantic. “What differentiates Palmata is its ability to show us how AI systems are actually perceiving our business and a clear set of actions backed by research and simulation.”

Simulated Impact models how recommended actions may influence AI reputation, helping teams compare opportunities, understand tradeoffs, and prioritize investments with greater confidence.

“Most AI visibility tools tell you whether you appear in an answer, but they don’t tell you what to do next,” said Jason McGhee, Palmata Head of Product at Contentful. “We built Palmata to help marketers understand how AI systems perceive their business, why those perceptions exist, and which actions are most likely to improve outcomes.”

While Palmata operates independently of the Contentful platform, the launch reflects Contentful’s broader vision for the future of digital experiences — one in which brands must optimize content not just for websites and search engines, but also for AI systems that increasingly mediate how information is discovered and consumed.

Also Read: Is AI About to Make Media Buying an Endless Experiment?

“Contentful was built on the belief that content is the foundation of every digital experience,” said Karthik Rau, CEO of Contentful. “Today, AI systems increasingly shape how businesses are discovered, understood, and evaluated before a customer ever visits a website. Palmata helps organizations navigate this shift by turning AI discovery risk into a credible plan for growth.”

Launch partners include The Atlantic, Box, Dataiku, DocuSign, Marketbridge, and Telus Digital. Palmata is generally available today in select markets, and marketers can run their first report for free at palmata.ai.

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CommerceIQ, the agentic retail platform, announced that Retail Media Management powered by AllyAI now includes DoorDash Ads campaign management and reporting, marking the company’s entry into local commerce. DoorDash became the leading third-party marketplace by order volume across grocery and retail in the U.S. in 2025, according to YipitData.

The DoorDash Ads API integration gives CPG brands a single place to manage DoorDash Ads alongside their broader retail media portfolio, making it easier to monitor performance, reach high-intent shoppers at the moment of purchase, and optimize campaigns for incrementality.

As consumers increasingly turn to local delivery for groceries, household essentials, and everyday on-demand purchases, brands are investing more heavily in retail media that influences consumers when they’re ready to buy. DoorDash Ads connects CPG brands to a high-intent customer base across grocery, convenience, retail, and alcohol stores to drive incremental sales, unlock new purchase occasions, and turn first-time buyers into loyal customers.

Also Read: AI Ads Will Win Only If They Earn Consumer Trust

Paired with AllyAI for Media and CommerceIQ’s neural network, brands can incorporate more than 50 real-time commerce signals into campaign decisions, not just advertising metrics. Unlike traditional retail media tools, AllyAI for Media incorporates traffic signals, search data, and category trends directly into media decision-making by continuously evaluating sales performance and competitive dynamics alongside advertising metrics. This gives brands a clear picture of what’s actually driving outcomes and where to invest to stay ahead, with strategy configured around business objectives like incremental sales and share of voice, not just ROAS.

“The lines between retail media and commerce are disappearing,” said Guru Hariharan, ceo of CommerceIQ. “Platforms like DoorDash play an increasingly important role in how consumers discover, evaluate, and buy. By bringing DoorDash onto our platform and leveraging AllyAI for Media, we’re giving brands the intelligence to compete where it counts and drive incremental sales.”

Also Read: The Hidden $71 Billion Crisis in Digital Advertising

“Consumers come to DoorDash ready to buy, whether it’s prepping for a summer cookout, hosting a soccer party, or dealing with a sick day when leaving the house isn’t an option,” said Katie Daleo, GM, CPG Ads, DoorDash. “These are the moments people turn to DoorDash, and we believe the brands that show up — and measure in real time, then optimize — are the ones driving outsized growth. CommerceIQ’s integration with the DoorDash Ads API gives advertisers the intelligence to do exactly that.”

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Comcast Corporation announced its intention to separate into two independent publicly traded companies through a tax-free spin-off of NBCUniversal and Sky. Upon completion of the transaction, Comcast shareholders will own shares in both companies, creating two focused industry leaders, each with significant scale, strong financial profiles, and distinct strategic opportunities.

The proposed separation reflects Comcast’s track record of positioning its businesses to compete in rapidly changing markets. As technological innovation, consumer behavior, and competitive dynamics continue to reshape both media and communications, Comcast’s board and management team believe each company will be better positioned to pursue its own strategic priorities, invest for growth, and create long-term shareholder value as independent entities.

Brian L. Roberts will continue to be actively involved in the leadership of both Comcast and NBCUniversal, working in partnership with the CEOs of each company. Mike Cavanagh will serve as Chief Executive Officer of NBCUniversal, while Michael Angelakis, Comcast’s former Chief Financial Officer, will become Chief Executive Officer of Comcast following completion of the separation. In the interim, Angelakis will join as a Strategic Advisor.

Comcast, a leading technology company serving residential and business customers through its broadband, wireless, and entertainment platforms, will focus on delivering exceptional customer experiences backed by the nation’s largest converged network, which reaches more than 65 million homes and businesses. With one of the nation’s fastest-growing wireless businesses and the industry’s leading business services platform, Comcast is positioned for long-term growth as a standalone connectivity company.

Also Read: Why the CMO Now Owns the Privacy Problem

NBCUniversal will become a premier global media and entertainment company, anchored by its growing theme parks division, Universal film and television studios, NBC and Telemundo networks, Peacock, Bravo, and Sky, its European media business. The company will be powered by a portfolio of world-class intellectual property, a deep content library, and exceptional strength across sports, news, and entertainment.

“This is a very exciting day for our company,” said Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Comcast Corporation. “The transaction we are announcing will unlock a more entrepreneurial management approach and open up a multitude of new opportunities for each business. Mike Cavanagh will lead the new NBCUniversal media and entertainment company as CEO. His vision is for a unique, independent, focused company that will be home to some of the industry’s most valuable brands and assets across theme parks, film, television, streaming, sports and news. I am also incredibly pleased to welcome Michael Angelakis back as Comcast’s CEO. Michael’s deep knowledge of the business and passion for technology will serve us well as we continue to take bold actions in today’s competitive environment.”

“Both companies begin this next chapter from positions of strength,” said Mike Cavanagh, Co-Chief Executive Officer of Comcast Corporation. “Comcast will continue to build on its leadership in connectivity, while NBCUniversal, together with Sky, will have the scale, brands, content and financial resources to compete as a premier global media and entertainment company.”

Also Read: Your Rebrand Is Failing. Have You Tried Listening?

“Comcast’s exceptional assets, entrepreneurial roots, deep customer relationships, and strong track record of innovation and technological leadership provide a powerful foundation for the future,” said Michael Angelakis. “Together, we will build on those strengths, execute aggressively, invest for growth, and pursue new opportunities to create value for our customers, colleagues and shareholders.”

The separation is expected to be completed through a tax-free spin-off to Comcast shareholders in approximately one year, subject to customary conditions including final approval by Comcast’s board of directors, receipt of tax opinions, regulatory approvals, and completion of financing arrangements. NBCUniversal will have the same dual-class share structure as Comcast. Comcast expects to retain a stake of up to 19.9% in NBCUniversal for up to one year after the spin, which it intends to monetize in a tax-efficient manner over time. Comcast intends to establish a strong investment-grade balance sheet for each business, providing both companies with significant financial flexibility to pursue their respective growth strategies.

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Artificial intelligence is rapidly emerging as the next frontier for digital advertising. Reports that OpenAI’s advertising pilot generated more than $100 million in revenue within six weeks have only intensified interest from marketers eager to secure an early advantage.

But while the commercial opportunity is undeniable, consumer trust will ultimately determine whether AI advertising succeeds.

Our survey of 1,000 large language model (LLM) users in the United States found that consumers are open to advertising inside AI assistants—but only if those experiences remain transparent, relevant, and respectful of personal boundaries.

Consumers Are Highly Engaged With AI 

AI assistants are already deeply embedded in everyday life.

Nearly two-thirds (63%) of respondents currently use only the free versions of AI assistants, while 31% have access to premium services. Of those paying for premium access, only 22% fund subscriptions themselves, with the remainder receiving access through employers or educational institutions.

Engagement is equally strong. More than half (56%) use AI assistants every day or several times a day. ChatGPT remains the most widely used platform, with 61% of respondents reporting they had used it during the past six months, ahead of Gemini (41%), Copilot (25%), Claude (13%), and Grok (11%).

For marketers, that represents a rapidly growing audience with unusually high levels of attention and intent.

Early Opportunity Comes With High Expectations 

History suggests that early adopters often benefit from new advertising channels.

Brands such as Duolingo and Ryanair established strong positions on TikTok before the platform became saturated, benefiting from lower competition and higher organic reach.

AI assistants may offer a similar opportunity, but under very different conditions.

Our research found that 82% of respondents consider advertising inside AI assistants to be at least as trustworthy as Google Search ads. At the same time, only one-third said AI advertising would be more intrusive than ads on social media platforms.

That combination of trust and engagement creates an attractive environment for marketers—but only if it is handled carefully.

Also Read: How Brands Turned the World Cup Into a Cultural Play

Trust Is the Real Competitive Advantage

Consumers are less concerned about seeing advertisements than they are about whether advertising will compromise the quality and objectivity of AI-generated responses.

One-third of respondents said they worry AI answers could become biased in favor of advertisers. Another 32% cited privacy and data concerns, while others questioned whether sponsored content would always be clearly distinguishable from unbiased recommendations.

Respondents also identified situations where advertising should remain off limits. Confidential work discussions (17%), mental health conversations (16%), medical topics (14%), and legal or financial discussions (12%) emerged as the contexts where advertising would feel most inappropriate.

For brands, these findings reinforce that AI advertising cannot simply replicate existing approaches to search or social media.

Context Matters More Than Personalization

The temptation for advertisers is obvious. AI assistants understand users far more deeply than traditional digital platforms, creating unprecedented opportunities for personalized marketing.

Consumers, however, appear cautious about that trade-off.

More than half of respondents said they would reconsider using memory and personalization features if advertising became more prominent. While 27% said they would disable personalization altogether, another 25% said they would keep memory features enabled but opt out of advertising based on those interactions.

Rather than building increasingly detailed behavioral profiles, marketers may achieve better long-term results by focusing on the context of individual prompts.

The most effective AI advertising may not depend on understanding who users are, but on understanding what they are trying to accomplish in that specific moment.

Also Read: The Agency-Led E-commerce Model Is Changing

A New Advertising Model

OpenAI has said that any future advertising will remain clearly separated from AI-generated responses and excluded from sensitive conversations.

Those commitments will be critical.

Consumers appear willing to embrace advertising in AI assistants—but only as long as they believe those platforms remain trustworthy.

For marketers, the opportunity is significant. The responsibility to preserve that trust may prove even greater.

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US consumer sentiment improved in June as easing inflation expectations and lower gasoline prices boosted household confidence, though concerns about the rising cost of living continue to weigh on Americans.

The University of Michigan’s final consumer sentiment index rose to 49.5 in June from a record-low 44.8 in May, according to survey data released Friday. The reading was higher than the preliminary estimate but remained the second-lowest level recorded since the survey began in the 1970s.

Consumers now expect prices to rise 4.6% over the next year, down from 4.8% in May. Longer-term inflation expectations also moderated, with respondents forecasting annual price increases of 3.3% over the next five to 10 years, reversing the sharp increase reported a month earlier.

Also Read: Your Marketing Dashboard Is Lying to Your CFO

Falling gasoline prices played a key role in improving sentiment. Average fuel prices have declined by more than 60 cents per gallon in recent weeks, boosting confidence across income groups and political affiliations.

Despite the improvement, financial pressures remain widespread.

“The cost of living remains at the forefront of consumers’ minds,” Joanne Hsu, director of the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers, said in a statement. “More than half of consumers spontaneously mentioned that high prices are weighing on their personal finances.”

The survey’s gauge of current economic conditions also improved in June but remained close to historic lows. Consumers’ assessments of their personal finances strengthened modestly from May, though they remained near their weakest levels since 2009.

At the same time, household spending has remained resilient. Government data released earlier this week showed inflation-adjusted consumer spending accelerated in May, suggesting demand has held up despite persistent price pressures.

Looking ahead, Americans expressed greater optimism about their future financial prospects and the broader economy. The survey’s expectations index climbed to its highest level in three months.

Hsu said the findings indicate consumers expect the economic impact of the recent Iran conflict to be temporary rather than long-lasting.

Also Read: AI Marketing Needs More Than Behavioral Data

An interim agreement between the United States and Iran has helped maintain shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, supporting global oil supplies and lowering energy prices. However, households could still face higher prices for some goods in the coming months as elevated transportation and material costs continue to filter through supply chains.

The survey, conducted between May 19 and June 22, found that durable goods buying conditions remained weak despite the broader improvement in consumer confidence.

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BlueConic has acquired Blueshift, an AI-powered cross-channel marketing platform, in a move to combine customer data, AI-driven decisioning, and campaign execution into a single platform for B2C brands.

The acquisition brings together BlueConic’s first-party customer data capabilities with Blueshift’s AI-powered orchestration across email, web, mobile, SMS, and in-app channels. The combined platform is designed to help brands capture customer behavior in real time, determine the next best action, and execute personalized engagement across owned channels.

Together, the companies serve more than 600 customers across consumer packaged goods, retail, direct-to-consumer, travel, and hospitality. BlueConic’s customers include ASICS, Free People, Marmot, and L’Oréal, while Blueshift works with brands such as Stitch Fix, Five Below, Tuft & Needle, Udacity, and LendingTree.

The acquisition comes as marketers increasingly adopt AI agents to automate customer engagement. While many platforms now offer AI capabilities, BlueConic argues that their effectiveness depends on access to accurate, real-time behavioral data rather than delayed or fragmented customer records.

Also Read: How Brands Turned the World Cup Into a Cultural Play 

“Marketing is going through its biggest reset in two decades,” said Melissa Murray Bailey, CEO of BlueConic. “Real-time context is the new competitive moat. Brands that own how they capture, decide, and act on first-party behavior will be structurally harder to compete with as agents become the primary operating model. That’s what BlueConic and Blueshift deliver together.”

BlueConic builds unified customer profiles using first-party behavioral data collected across web, mobile applications, and offline interactions. The platform makes real-time decisions based on those signals, while Blueshift extends those decisions across email, push notifications, SMS, in-app messaging, and web experiences. Customer responses are then fed back into the platform, creating a continuous feedback loop that refines future recommendations.

The company said its platform is designed to operate across warehouse, lakehouse, and hybrid data environments, allowing brands to activate customer data regardless of where it is stored. As AI agents become more deeply embedded in marketing operations, BlueConic believes organizations will increasingly compete on their ability to combine trusted customer data, intelligent decisioning, and cross-channel execution.

Also Read: Are We Using AI to Help Customers or Avoid Them?

“For ten years, Blueshift has helped leading brands deliver hundreds of millions of personalized customer experiences every day, and we’ve spent the last several years building toward an agent-first future,” said Vijay Chittoor, CEO and Co-founder of Blueshift. “Joining BlueConic gives customers a single platform where unified customer understanding, AI decisioning, and cross-channel execution work together, with AI agents built into the platform from the outset.”

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Aurasell has introduced Agent Builder, a new no-code capability designed to help go-to-market (GTM) teams build, orchestrate, and deploy AI-powered workflows using natural language, unified customer data, and built-in governance.

The launch expands Aurasell’s AI-native GTM platform by enabling sales, marketing, and customer success teams to create autonomous workflows without engineering support. The company said the capability is designed to help organizations operationalize AI across customer engagement while reducing reliance on fragmented tools and disconnected customer data.

According to Aurasell, many organizations struggle to deploy AI effectively because customer information is spread across multiple applications, limiting the context available to AI agents and reducing the quality of recommendations and automated actions.

Also Read: Payment Experience Is the Foundation of B2B Loyalty

“We’re at an inflection point where the question is no longer whether AI belongs in GTM, but whether your stack was built to support it,” said Jason Eubanks, CEO and co-founder of Aurasell. “Legacy tools weren’t built for autonomous action. Agent Builder is.”

Agent Builder allows GTM teams to design workflows using natural language while bringing together structured and unstructured customer data from across the technology stack. The platform continuously captures customer interactions across channels, analyzes intent in real time, and automates actions designed to improve revenue outcomes.

The capability is built around three core components:

• Aura Context, which creates a unified, real-time view of customer interactions across channels.
• Aura Trust, which provides governance through role-based access controls and policy management.
• Aura IQ, which applies go-to-market intelligence developed with input from experienced GTM operators.

Since launching its platform in August 2025, Aurasell said it has grown to more than 50 customers, with 37% replacing either HubSpot or Salesforce. The company also reported more than $6 million in annual recurring revenue and over 185 million AI-powered workflows executed across its platform.

Customers, including Xerox, TCI Transportation, and Kurrent.AI, are using the platform to identify customer intent and automate revenue workflows.

Xerox, for example, used Aurasell to enrich and analyze more than 85,000 customer accounts while building an AI-driven workflow that recommends next-best actions across its customer base.

“Our fundamental business challenge was to improve our cost of revenue,” said Jim Robshaw, Chief Data and AI Officer at Xerox. “Aurasell enabled both of those business process challenges within weeks of implementation.”

Also Read: Is AI About to Make Media Buying an Endless Experiment?

TCI Transportation also deployed Agent Builder to connect third-party intent data and automatically generate downstream workflows—including account routing, task creation, and outreach sequences—without engineering or RevOps support.

“What would traditionally be a multi-team RevOps project took ten minutes and zero technical involvement,” said Ross Calame, EVP of Sales at TCI Transportation.

Marc Manara, Head of Startups at OpenAI, said the platform demonstrates how OpenAI’s latest models can be combined with customer context and verification layers to build AI workflows that execute more reliably for go-to-market teams.

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Nearly all consumers now consult multiple sources before making a purchase, signaling a shift toward more deliberate shopping behavior as economic uncertainty and AI-driven commerce reshape the buying journey, according to Bazaarvoice’s latest Shopper Experience Index.

The study found that 97% of shoppers research multiple sources before making a purchase, prioritizing trust, independent validation, and value over convenience or speed. Consumers are increasingly comparing information across reviews, search engines, creator content, and AI-powered tools before committing to a purchase.

“Whether they’re discovering products through AI search tools, content creators, or traditional search, shoppers are increasingly looking for independent validation before making a decision,” said Jo Callahan, Head of Client Strategy and Insights at Bazaarvoice.

She added that authentic user-generated content has become increasingly important not only for influencing consumers but also for improving visibility in AI-powered search, which relies heavily on independent reviews and customer sentiment to generate recommendations.

Also Read: The Agency-Led E-commerce Model Is Changing

The report highlights four key shifts in consumer behavior:

Consumers Are Slowing Down Despite Earlier Retail Promotions

While retailers continue to move seasonal sales events earlier to stimulate demand, shoppers are taking more time to evaluate purchases. Sixty percent of respondents said they consult two or three different sources before buying a product, while another 37% said they review four or more sources before making a decision.

AI Is Viewed as an Assistant—Not an Autonomous Shopper

Despite growing investment in AI-powered shopping agents, consumers remain cautious about handing over purchasing decisions. One-third of respondents said they still prefer a fully human-led shopping experience.

Instead, shoppers are embracing AI tools that support research rather than replace it. Text summaries were the most widely accepted AI feature (43%), followed by AI-powered Q&A chatbots (41%).

Influencers Drive Discovery, but Reviews Drive Conversion

Influencer marketing continues to play an important role in product discovery, but consumers rarely rely on creators alone when making purchase decisions.

Nearly half (48%) of shoppers identified with the “Influencer’s Best Friend” persona during product discovery. However, 38% said they immediately turn to search engines and customer reviews to verify claims, compare experiences, and identify potential product shortcomings before completing a purchase.

Also Read: E-commerce Doesn’t Have a Data Problem. It Has a Speed One.

Shopping Behavior Is Becoming More Consistent Across Generations

The research also challenges the assumption that different age groups require fundamentally different engagement strategies.

Across Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers, respondents consistently prioritized research, value, and authenticity. The dominant consideration-stage behavior across nearly every generation was the “Archivist”—shoppers who gather and retain extensive product information before purchasing.

Meanwhile, the “Influencer’s Best Friend” emerged as the leading discovery behavior across generations, while the “Unsolicited Evangelist” ranked among the strongest post-purchase advocacy behaviors for both Gen Z and Baby Boomers.

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