What shoppers choose after trying a retail AI agent

ElevenLabs reports findings from three international shopper studies examining preferences for AI retail agents after participants interacted with live voice agents. While surveys of hypothetical use favored typing, shoppers who tried voice agents generally preferred speaking and hearing responses for tasks such as product discovery, gift ideas, and order support, though product comparisons benefited from accompanying text or visuals. Willingness to use an agent declined as problems became more serious, with shoppers more likely to request a human for issues such as unauthorized orders, incorrect charges, or failed initial attempts. Participants also valued written records of resolutions, often preferring a slower typed interaction with confirmation over a faster voice-only response. The company concludes that retailers should use voice agents for routine questions and delivery support, provide multimodal responses and transcripts, maintain clear and immediate escalation paths to human staff, and reserve sensitive financial, security, and disputed-order matters for people.

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