Rise of AI shopping pushes merchants to protect loyalty, Adyen says, and the immediate challenge is bigger than adding another sales channel. Retailers must preserve customer trust while AI systems influence discovery, recommendations and potentially checkout. For shoppers, the trade-off is convenience against privacy and control. For merchants, it is wider reach against a weaker direct relationship with the customer.
AI shopping is already part of the customer journey
Adyen’s account of its 2025 retail research says 38% of shoppers across Asia-Pacific use AI assistants while shopping. Adoption varies substantially by market: Adyen reports a 58% rate in Malaysia and 49% in Singapore.
Those figures suggest AI-assisted commerce is more than a speculative product category, at least among the consumers covered by Adyen’s research. However, the supplied evidence does not include the full survey methodology, sample composition or underlying questionnaire. The percentages should therefore be treated as Adyen’s reported findings rather than a universal measure of consumer behavior.
Retail investment also differs by country. Adyen says 47% of retailers in Japan and 72% in Malaysia planned AI investments spanning areas such as sales, marketing and product innovation. That range matters: merchants cannot assume every market, customer group or business is moving at the same pace.
Loyalty depends on more than a personalized offer
Personalization can give customers a reason to return. In a separate article about its work with Adobe, Adyen says 54% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands offering personalized loyalty discounts. The same source says 40% will abandon a purchase if payment takes too long.
These company-reported findings point to a practical tension. Retailers are expected to recognize customers and reduce friction, but gathering more behavioral data can make the experience feel intrusive. Adyen’s Asia-Pacific article says 43% of shoppers find it invasive when retailers track purchases and browsing history to provide AI-powered offers and advertising.
A merchant choosing an AI shopping strategy therefore has to answer specific questions: What customer information does the system need? Can shoppers understand why a recommendation appeared? Is there a straightforward opt-out? Can a person take over when automation produces an irrelevant result or fails to resolve a problem?
Adyen recommends clear communication about data use, accessible opt-outs and timely contact with human staff. Those are recommendations from a payments company with a commercial interest in connected commerce, not evidence that any particular implementation will preserve loyalty.
Retailers may gain reach while losing part of the relationship
AI shopping agents introduce another trade-off. A customer may ask an assistant to compare products, assemble a cart or complete parts of a transaction without spending much time in a retailer’s own storefront. That can reduce effort, but it may also shift product presentation and customer interaction into an interface the merchant does not control.
An independent Digital Applied guide to Adyen Agentic describes a system intended to connect merchant catalogs, carts and payments with multiple AI-commerce protocols. The guide reports that the offering was limited to U.S. enterprise merchants at launch. That limitation is important for smaller businesses and retailers outside the United States: the supplied evidence does not establish broad availability, pricing or the implementation resources required.
The guide also portrays protocol fragmentation as an integration problem for merchants. Supporting several AI-shopping environments could broaden distribution, but each added connection creates more data, order and customer-service workflows to manage. The evidence does not quantify those costs or show whether sales through AI agents produce stronger retention than conventional web, app or store purchases.
What merchants can act on now
Retailers do not need to predict which AI-shopping platform will prevail before improving the foundations customers already notice. Fast checkout, consistent product information, connected return options and transparent data controls remain relevant whether a purchase starts with an AI assistant, social platform or conventional search.
Merchants evaluating AI tools should separate measurable outcomes from vendor promises. Useful tests include whether customers complete purchases more reliably, return without heavier discounting and receive correct information across channels. Businesses should also determine who controls consent records, purchase histories and post-sale support when an outside assistant participates in the journey.
What can be verified now is that Adyen’s reported shoppers show both interest in AI assistance and discomfort with extensive tracking. What remains unresolved is whether agent-led commerce will create durable loyalty, merely redirect transactions or impose integration costs that only large retailers can absorb. Until independent performance evidence is available, preserving customer choice is the safer measure of progress.
AI shopping is not simply a faster route to checkout. It changes who controls product discovery, customer data and the relationship after a transaction. Adyen’s figures indicate meaningful consumer use alongside clear privacy concerns, but the supplied material does not show that AI-generated recommendations produce lasting loyalty. Large retailers may be better positioned to manage multiple integrations and data flows, while smaller merchants face unanswered questions about cost and access. The practical benchmark should not be whether a retailer can deploy an AI shopping feature. It should be whether customers receive accurate information, understandable choices and reliable support without surrendering more data than the service requires.
Sources and methodology
- Rise of AI shopping pushes merchants to protect loyalty, Adyen says - Reuters - https://www.adyen.com/knowledge-hub/insights-from-adyen-index-retail-report-apac
- Why speed, flexibility, and personalization will define the next ... - https://www.adyen.com/knowledge-hub/why-speed-flexibility-and-personalization-will-define-the-next-era-of-digital-commerce
- Adyen Agentic: Selling Through AI Shopping Agents 2026 - https://www.digitalapplied.com/blog/adyen-agentic-commerce-integration-layer-2026-merchant-guide
- Adyen report finds majority of U.S. shoppers open to AI ... - Retail Insider - https://retail-insider.com/retail-insider/2026/01/adyen-report-finds-majority-of-u-s-shoppers-open-to-ai-making-purchases-on-their-behalf
