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A new report from Experian appears to illuminate a key issue for artificial intelligence in commerce. Consumers may be more comfortable using it for product discovery, comparisons, and recommendations, but many lack trust in handing AI financial-services decisions.
Experian, in its 11th annual Identity and Fraud Report, found that 31% of consumers have used AI tools to shop online, with another 23% saying they would consider using it. But when it comes to higher-value financial decisions, just 21% are comfortable using AI for completing travel-related purchases, and only 17% for financial-services decisions.
The role of AI in commerce and fraud has consumers worried, the report found. In two surveys, Experian gathered responses from more than 2,000 U.S. consumers and responses from more than 200 businesses in the second one.
Among consumers, concern about AI-generated phishing emails or messages was high among all income levels, with 51% of lower-income consumers worried about them, followed by 56% of middle-income respondents, and 55% of high-income earners.
Most consumers are aware of AI-related scams, with just 5% of higher earners and 15% of middle-income consumers not aware. That jumped to 23% for lower-income levels.
Among companies, 53% cited AI-generated phishing attacks as their top AI fraud concern, with AI-assisted first-party fraud, 51%, document forgery, 45%, automated bot attacks, 40%, and deepfake voice scams, 37%, rounding out the list.
Experian also found that consumers are intrigued by, but wary of, agentic commerce, the notion of assigning purchase decisions to an AI bot. With nearly one-third already employing AI as a shopping aid, though, skeptics outnumber users. Another 31% either would not consider using one or are strongly opposed to using one, with 16% unsure if they would.
Even though consumer use of AI shopping tools is a minority of commerce now, brands and merchants must accommodate this group of consumers.
“That shift raises new identity questions. Organizations may need to verify the person, the agent, the relationship between the person and the agent, the permissions granted to the agent, and the context of the requested action,” Experian says in the report.
Businesses place the most confidence, at 93%, in adaptive risk-based authentication, followed by know-your-agent protocols, 91%, and document verification, such as verifying a shopper’s driver’s license for identification, at 89%.
“As we move toward a human-not-present era where consumers increasingly rely on AI to help make decisions on their behalf, the organizations that will succeed will be the ones that make trust visible. Establishing identity and trust, whether for a person or an AI agent, is essential to every digital interaction,” Kathleen Peters, Experian chief innovation officer, says in a statement.
