The fear that AI agents will cut merchants out of transactions is a hallucination, PSE Consulting finds
Merchants' fear that AI shopping agents will cut them out of the sale is, for now at least, a ‘hallucination’, according to a PSE Consulting study of 4,250 consumers across the UK, US, France and Germany. 89% say recognising the seller’s brand is important or very important when acting on an AI recommendation and 92% state that customer reviews are a deciding factor - the same trust signals that have always governed purchasing decisions, now applied to a new discovery channel.
Amazon's lawsuit against Perplexity AI - which accuses the startup's Comet browser of disguising AI agents as human shoppers to buy on its site - has been read as the opening shot in a war over who controls the checkout button when AI does the shopping, crystallising a fear now spreading through merchant boardrooms.
PSE Consulting’s findings suggest that while AI agents are increasingly shaping the shortlist of products consumers consider, they are not displacing the merchants, marketplaces and brands consumers ultimately trust to complete the sale. Consumers continue to favour established marketplaces for fulfilment, even as they lean on advertising funded AI tools to get there - 90% say their use of retail and travel marketplaces will stay the same or increase as AI adoption grows, and just one in ten expect to rely on them less.
"The fear that AI agents will simply cut merchants out of the transaction is, on the evidence of our research, a hallucination," says Chris Jones, Managing Director at PSE Consulting. "Consumers are using AI to build a shortlist, not to transfer their loyalty to buying from the agent. The Amazon-Perplexity case is really a fight about who owns the discovery layer - it is not evidence that shoppers have stopped caring who they buy from."
He adds: "That doesn't mean merchants can relax. The competitive battle has moved upstream, into the AI discovery layer itself. But the idea that agents are about to replace the merchant relationship altogether isn't what consumers are telling us."
What it means for merchants: Retailers don't need to fight AI agents for the sale - they need to fight for a place in the shortlist. Consumers heavily favour independent AI assistants such as ChatGPT or Gemini for discovery (74%) over tools embedded in a single retail platform (10%), which means visibility increasingly depends on how well product, pricing and trust data are represented to third-party AI systems, not just to human shoppers on-site.
Brand and review signals remain a merchant's strongest asset once the shortlist is built: 68% of consumers say they'll consider a seller an AI recommends but don't already know, provided they can check reviews and ratings first. The one soft spot is loyalty - in the UK, 36% of consumers say losing loyalty points would put them off using AI shopping tools altogether, more than double the rate in Germany (14%), a reminder that existing loyalty ecosystems still carry real commercial weight.
What it means for PSPs, acquirers, issuers and schemes: The Amazon-Perplexity dispute isn't a preview of some future problem - it's a symptom of one that already exists. Today's risk isn't an algorithm acting alone with delegated authority; it's AI agents operating in a human-in-the-loop model that fraudulent actors are already exploiting - bots disguised as human shoppers, fraudulent listings and reviews gaming their way onto shortlists.
Authentication, dispute resolution and liability frameworks are being tested now: PSPs and issuers need to know whether a transaction was initiated by a human or a bot acting on their behalf, and merchants need better tools to verify who they're actually selling to. Transaction volume isn't migrating away from existing rails, but the accountability question at the point of purchase is already live.
What it means for AI agent platforms: A tiered market is emerging - free, advertising supported assistants for the mainstream and premium, impartial alternatives for a smaller, quality conscious segment. 43% of consumers say they're happy to use a free assistant even if its recommendations are shaped by advertising, against 27% who'd rather pay for a fully impartial one but that tolerance has a ceiling: 40% say advertising reduces their trust in AI recommendations, rising to 48% in the UK and to 50% among over-55s. As litigation like Amazon's puts agentic commerce under a legal and public spotlight, providers will face growing pressure to show how they calibrate trust and represent merchants fairly.
2026 RTIH Innovation Awards
AI will be a key focus area at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards.
The awards are now open for entries and celebrate global retail technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.
Our winners will be revealed at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London on Wednesday, 4th November.
Check out our 2025 winners here.
Our 2025 hall of fame entrants were revealed during a sold out event which took place at The HAC on 16th October and consisted of a drinks reception, three course meal, and awards ceremony presided over by award winning comedian, actress and writer Tiff Stevenson.
In his welcome speech, Scott Thompson, Founder and Editor, RTIH, said: “This is the awards’ fifth year as a physical event. We started off with just 30 people at the South Place Hotel not far from here, then moved to London Bridge Hotel, then The Barbican, and last year RIBA’s HQ in the West End.”
“But I’m conscious of the fact that, to quote the legend that is Taylor Swift, You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby. So, this year we’ve moved to our biggest venue yet, and also pulled in our largest number of entries to date and broken attendance records.”
He added: “This year’s submissions have without doubt been our best yet. To quote one of the judges: The examples of innovative developments across both traditional and digital retail spaces were truly remarkable.”
Congratulations to our winners, and a big thank you to our sponsors, judging panel, the legend that is Tiff Stevenson, and all those who attended our 2025 gathering.
