Riskified Survey: Confidence is Rising In AI Shopping While Adoption Remains Nascent

Riskified’s latest Agentic Commerce Pulse finds that consumers are increasingly confident with the idea of AI for shopping, even if they’re not using it yet, but bigger existential questions about control and governance remain.

NEW YORK, October 27, 2026 — Riskified (NYSE: RSKD), a global leader in digital fraud and risk intelligence, today released the latest edition of its Agentic Commerce Pulse, a research series tracking how consumers are adopting AI-powered shopping tools and the risks emerging alongside them. Riskified’s September 2026 survey of 5,100 consumers globally shows that as AI agents like Muse and Instinct gain broad attention and adoption, consumer comfort with the idea of using AI for shopping remains well ahead of actual adoption, and open-ended questions of control and governance still need to be addressed.

Half of all consumers surveyed by Riskified said they were more comfortable now than six months ago with the idea of an AI shopping agent completing a purchase without immediate approval, signaling growing openness to agent-led transactions. This is coming to pass as agents like Muse and Instinct are attracting a lot of focus and attention. Importantly, consumers reported less distrust, alongside this growing comfort. In Riskified’s Q2 survey, 47% of consumers surveyed said they wouldn’t trust any company for agentic commerce, a figure that fell by almost two-thirds in the latest survey, to 17%.

Riskified’s latest Agentic Commerce Pulse shows a significant delta between AI use for discovery in shopping and comfort with the general idea of agentic commerce, and actually using an AI tool to complete a purchase. Eighty percent of consumers surveyed said that they have used AI for some parts of the shopping process, 74% of consumers said they would allow agentic purchases in some form and 68% said they were likely to use AI for holiday shopping. Conversely, just 11% of consumers have completed a purchase inside an AI tool. Meanwhile, openness toward AI declines the closer you get to the transaction: just 7% of people surveyed said they were comfortable letting AI buy something without their approval. The pattern suggests consumers are embracing AI as a shopping assistant faster than they are accepting it as an autonomous buyer.

This combination of growing comfort and hyper-awareness of agentic commerce tools, with relatively nascent adoption, suggests we are heading into a crucial moment for the agentic market. Existentially, Riskified’s Agentic Commerce Pulse points to larger issues of control and governance that still need to be addressed to truly clear the path for confident adoption and growth. While consumers surveyed were increasingly comfortable with agentic commerce tools, the findings point to an emerging relationship of conditional autonomy, where consumers are willing to give AI greater authority if they establish the limits. More than four-in-10 shoppers (43%) surveyed by Riskified still want to approve every purchase before it happens, while 29% would allow an AI agent to purchase automatically within rules they set, either requiring approval for exceptions or receiving notifications after purchases are made.

Governance and responsibility also remains an open question. One-third of consumers surveyed said they would trust a general AI platform such as ChatGPT or Gemini to run a shopping agent, compared with 17% who would trust a retailer or brand they already shop with, and 9% who would trust a bank, credit card company or digital wallet. This is despite security of payment credentials and AI choosing the wrong product being two of the biggest consumer concerns expressed. When AI makes a mistake, the majority of consumers surveyed (51%) said the AI platform should be responsible for issuing refunds, even though Muse and Instinct both state in their terms and conditions that users are responsible for the actions taken by the agents. Consumers also want AI to identify itself: more than two-thirds of consumers surveyed (68%) said they would always want to know when they are interacting with an AI agent rather than a human.

“Consumers are getting comfortable delegating shopping to AI, but they haven’t delegated the blame. More than half expect the AI platform to refund a mistaken purchase, the platforms’ terms say the user is liable, and in practice, that dispute lands on the merchant,” said Jeff Otto, Chief Marketing Officer at Riskified. “‘The agent did it’ is about to become a new refund-abuse vector. Agentic commerce only scales if merchants can tell a real customer using a legitimate agent from a hijacked account or malicious automation. That’s why Riskified is extending its identity risk intelligence to the person behind the agent, for the order and the service interactions that follow.”

As agentic commerce expands, merchants will need to distinguish trusted customers and legitimate AI agents from fraudsters attempting to exploit automated transactions. Riskified helps merchants navigate that shift with AI-powered risk intelligence and identity-based insights to support safer commerce while reducing fraud and chargeback exposure. Read more about how Riskified enables merchants to embrace the future of agentic commerce with confidence. 

The findings mark a steady evolution in consumer attitudes toward AI-powered commerce. Riskified’s Q4 2025 research found that 73% of consumers were already using AI at some point in their shopping journey, while its Q1 2026 research highlighted fraud, security, and accountability concerns as barriers to fully autonomous transactions. The latest results suggest consumers are becoming more comfortable with agentic commerce, but on clearly defined terms. 

Riskified empowers merchants to thrive in the dynamic world of agentic commerce with innovative tools designed to ensure both growth and security, while providing guarantees to offset financial liability for agentic fraud chargebacks. Read more about how Riskified helps merchants embrace this future of ecommerce with confidence.

About the Survey

Riskified conducted an online survey of 5,100 consumers aged 18 and older in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Mexico, and Brazil. Most respondents were 18-61. All had made an online purchase in the past three months and the sample spans a range of household incomes and education levels.