McKinsey Report: 76% Indian Shoppers Use AI Tools to Buy Online

30 Oct 2026, 08:52 by Vinay Kakkad · KalingaTV

New Delhi: Indian consumers are embracing artificial intelligence for digital commerce at one of the highest rates worldwide, placing the country just behind China in automated retail adoption, according to findings released by McKinsey.

The global consultancy surveyed approximately 21,000 shoppers across 11 markets and found that 76 per cent of consumers in India deploy artificial intelligence to look up merchandise, evaluate competing options, or guide purchasing choices. That adoption level places India second globally behind China, where 80 per cent of respondents rely on AI for retail activity. Both nations lead the rest of the world significantly, outpacing the average adoption level of other surveyed countries by about 29 percentage points against a worldwide benchmark of 53 per cent.

Consumer confidence in machine-driven retail tools is particularly pronounced in the Indian market. While the global average for trust in AI-powered search and chat platforms stands at 73 per cent, Indian sentiment rises to 87 per cent. Indian shoppers also emerged as the top users of Amazon’s Alexa for Shopping among all examined countries, with 77 per cent of local AI users reporting engagement with the voice platform.

Beyond discovery, consumer behavior is shifting toward delegating the final checkout to automated systems. Worldwide, 14 per cent of AI users—amounting to 9 per cent of the broader population—have executed transactions directly through an AI tool. McKinsey observed that buyer habits are transitioning from receiving machine recommendations to letting algorithms handle the entire journey from search and evaluation through final payment.

The choice of platform changes as buyers move closer to paying. While third-party, standalone AI tools dominate early product discovery and comparison, retailer-managed assistants catch up at checkout. At the transaction stage, 15 per cent of AI users rely on retail assistants compared to 14 per cent using standalone platforms, driven largely by merchant systems having built-in integration with real-time stock levels, payment gateways, and shipping logistics.

The impact of machine search on buying behavior is outstripping conventional web browsing. Shoppers using AI are 3.2 times more likely to view AI discovery tools as influential compared to traditional search engines. Among surveyed users, 81 per cent credited the technology with effectively narrowing and filtering choices, while 79 per cent noted substantial time savings.

McKinsey noted, however, that commercial infrastructure is lagging behind consumer appetite. The firm stated that while buyers are eager to expand their use of automated shopping, businesses face a critical readiness gap. To capture this emerging automated commerce and turn industry disruption into commercial expansion, the report emphasized that brands must overhaul product catalog data, dynamic pricing, and live inventory records while scaling up their technical AI capabilities.

(Source: ANI)