What shoppers choose once they’ve tried a retail AI agent

ElevenLabs ran three studies across the UK, US, Canada, Australia, Europe, South Africa and Latin America in which most shoppers completed a real task with a live voice agent before answering questions. Nearly half chose speaking and hearing replies going forward, and voice was the top choice on all six shopping tasks, though comparing products split shoppers almost evenly; when told an agent had failed once, the share asking for a person rose from 24% for a late delivery to 61% for a wrong charge. Shoppers wanted a written record of resolutions, and 60% said they would abandon an agent entirely if there were no visible way to reach a person.