According to PYMNTS.com, a survey of 2,113 U.S. adults from October 14-29, 2025, reveals AI is fundamentally reshaping the consumer journey. More than six in ten consumers used a dedicated AI platform in the past year, with 71% of Gen Z having tried it. Crucially, over one-third of Gen Z and Power Users now turn to an AI platform like ChatGPT or Claude as their first tool for personal tasks, a behavior that surged 36% and 28% respectively in just one month. This “AI-first” shift is reducing traditional search reliance, with 42% of dedicated platform users saying they now use search engines less. The report also found that digital wallets are the preferred payment bridge for AI commerce, chosen by one-third of consumers for safer transactions.
The front door has moved
Here’s the thing that really matters: it’s not just that people are using AI. It’s where they’re using it in their daily sequence. When over a third of your most forward-leaning consumers start their day—or a task—inside a conversational AI window, the entire architecture of discovery gets upended. Think about it. For decades, the “front door” to the internet was a search bar or maybe an app store. Now, for a significant chunk of people, it’s a prompt.
And that changes everything for brands and service providers. SEO? App store optimization? Comparison shopping engines? They all face what the report calls “structural headwinds.” Your product isn’t being found in a list of blue links anymore. It’s being interpreted, summarized, and potentially recommended—or not—by an AI agent based on a casual user conversation. Winning now means ensuring your brand’s truths, offers, and policies can be accurately represented in that conversational layer. It’s a whole new game.
Replacement, not just augmentation
There’s a critical nuance in the data that’s easy to miss. The behavior change is starkest for people using dedicated AI platforms, not just AI summaries inside search (like Google’s AI Overviews). Dedicated platform users are 27% more likely to reduce search use, and 43% of them say they’re fully replacing old methods. For search-AI users, 59% say it’s just a complement.
So what does that tell us? The environment is key. A dedicated platform like ChatGPT feels like a distinct tool, a new workspace. It encourages a different mindset—you’re there to do something, not just find something. This is where it starts to act as a “generalized personal operating system,” as the report puts it. Light Users are already replacing old habits for writing and shopping discovery there. The path to deeper, higher-stakes use? That’s still gated by trust and accuracy, especially for things like finances. But the behavioral foundation is being poured right now.
The trust and payment problem
Okay, so people are starting in AI. They’re getting advice and discovering products. How does that actually turn into a transaction? The loop has to close. And consumers are pretty clear about how they want that to happen: through digital wallets. One-third prefer linking a wallet like Apple Pay or Google Pay to an AI platform for payment. “Redirect to merchant site” is second.
This is a hugely pragmatic signal. People don’t want to store their card inside some new AI app. They want to use existing, trusted rails. The wallet becomes the crucial trust layer—the secure bridge between an intent expressed in conversation and a payment executed safely. For banks and fintechs, the implication is massive. If the financial conversation starts on a neutral AI platform, your brand still needs to be the trusted endpoint for the actual action. It’s a distribution challenge they’ve never really faced before.
What comes next?
The report’s framework, segmenting users by actions into Holdouts, Light Users, Mainstream, and Power Users, is probably the smartest takeaway for execs. Demographics are less important than behavior. Power Users are your living labs for complex, agentic services. Light Users show you where to start (low-risk, high-utility tasks). And Holdouts? They’re a design mandate, telling you that privacy and control aren’t features—they’re the price of admission for the next wave.
Basically, we’re watching the early, messy formation of a new layer in digital life. AI is becoming a distribution channel, a discovery engine, and a personal assistant all at once. The companies that win won’t just bolt a chatbot onto their app. They’ll architect entire experiences for a world where the consumer’s first question isn’t typed into Google, but whispered to an AI. That’s a bigger shift than it seems. And it’s already happening.
