Teens Trust AI Shopping Recommendations More Than Friends or Parents, Mastercard Survey Finds

Quick Facts

31% of teens trust AI product recommendations over a friend’s, and 23% trust AI over their parents, per a Mastercard survey of 26,000 respondents across 13 countries.
AI-driven traffic to U.S. retail websites increased 393% year-over-year, while Williams-Sonoma’s Olive AI assistant drove a 620% jump in revenue since January.
Morgan Stanley projects agentic AI shoppers could represent $190 billion to $385 billion in U.S. e-commerce spending by 2030.

Teenagers are shifting who they trust for shopping advice, and AI is winning. A new Mastercard report published in September 2026 found that 31% of teens trust AI-generated product recommendations over a friend’s suggestion. Nearly a quarter, 23%, would follow AI advice over their parents’.

The report, titled “A Short History of the Future of Shopping and Payments,” drew on input from four futurists and a survey of 26,000 parents and teenagers across 13 countries. Research firm Opinium conducted the survey in June and July 2026.

Teens are also heavier AI users than their parents. While 49% of parents said they use AI at least once a month to research products, 62% of teenagers said the same. Teens are twice as likely as parents to use AI weekly to find the best price or discount, at 18% versus 10%.

Younger teens are the most receptive. Those aged 13 to 14 were more likely to trust AI advice than teens aged 15 to 17, at 27% versus 20%. Meanwhile, 27% of teens said they would use a fully AI-run shopping assistant that recommends products, selects between options, and completes purchases on their behalf. Only 16% of parents said the same.

Retailers Are Already Responding

Major retailers are not waiting on the trend. Williams-Sonoma’s Olive AI assistant drove a 700% increase in engagement and a 620% jump in revenue since January, with customers converting at three times the normal rate. The company’s Pottery Barn unit launched the Otto assistant, which now resolves 70% of customer interactions without a human agent.

“AI increasingly helps people decide what to buy; tomorrow it will help do the purchasing for them too,” said Brice van de Walle, Executive Vice President of Core Payments Europe at Mastercard.

Target reported that online traffic driven to its site by ChatGPT is growing 40% monthly on average. The company is now working with OpenAI to test contextual advertising inside ChatGPT. Williams-Sonoma is doing the same, and also deployed the Salesforce Agentforce 360 Platform to build agentic customer service bots.

Williams-Sonoma CEO Laura Alber addressed the shift directly on a recent earnings call. “So many aspects of our tactile and taste-driven business cannot be replaced by AI, but our processes can certainly be enhanced by it,” she said. Alber said the company is using AI to “drive sales, improve service and make our teams more effective.”

The Trust Gap Is Real

Not all consumers are ready to hand their wallets to an algorithm. A YouGov survey of 2,216 UK adults found 53% actively distrust AI product suggestions, and 94% consider at least one form of retail personalization intrusive. In the U.S., 75% of Americans said they would trust AI shopping results less if those results were sponsored, according to a survey from Quad and The Harris Poll.

Data from Alchemer’s 2026 Retail Report shows the age divide is stark. Seventy-four percent of shoppers aged 18 to 29 have used AI to research a purchase, compared to just 20% of those 61 and older. Half of American shoppers are already using AI for retail research, but only a third say they trust what it tells them.

What Is Coming by 2030

The financial stakes are large. Morgan Stanley Research projects that agentic AI shoppers could account for $190 billion to $385 billion in U.S. e-commerce spending by 2030, capturing 10% to 20% of the total market. Globally, more than 300 million online shoppers could routinely use AI agents to shop and pay within that same window.

Lead futurist Magnus Lindkvist put it plainly. “By 2030, buying and shopping will no longer mean the same thing,” he said. “AI agents will handle routine buying, leaving shopping as something we choose to do for discovery, inspiration, and pleasure.”

For DTC brands, the window to build AI-native shopping experiences is open now. Teens who trust AI recommendations today are the primary adult shoppers of the next decade.