41% of Millennials Use ChatGPT for Product Discovery

Millennial shopping is producing a split between where buying decisions begin and where purchases ultimately happen.

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “The Millennial Shopping Map: How AI, Search and Stores Compete Before Checkout” found in July that Google remains the most widely used product-discovery tool among millennials, at 57%. However, ChatGPT has moved into second place at 41%, ahead of Amazon at 37%, YouTube at 29%, and Instagram and Gemini each reach 26%.

The significance is less that artificial intelligence has displaced search, because it has not, than that it is competing with marketplaces and social platforms at the point where consumers narrow their choices. That puts product discovery outside the merchant’s own storefront earlier in the buying process.

The data also showed why discovery should not be confused with the transaction itself. Millennials move among AI, search, marketplaces, merchant apps and stores, with the mix changing according to what they are buying.

Key findings:

ChatGPT is used for product discovery by 41% of millennials. That puts the AI platform ahead of Amazon’s 37% and behind only Google’s 57%. The comparison is notable because Amazon combines discovery with an immediate path to purchase, while ChatGPT can enter the process before a shopper has selected either a product or merchant.

Among millennials who turned to generative AI for shopping research, 42% said AI has fully or mostly replaced their previous research methods. That suggests AI is not merely another tab consumers open alongside search, reviews and social media. For a sizable share of users, it is absorbing some of the work those channels previously performed.

When it comes to groceries, 77% of millennials made their most recent purchase in a physical store. Only 16% of millennial grocery purchases are made online, compared with 29% of non-grocery retail purchases and 27% of restaurant food purchases. Meanwhile, 47% of millennials made three to five grocery trips or orders during the previous 30 days.

Put together, the findings make millennial commerce less a story of online replacing offline than of digital influence reaching further upstream. AI can help determine the products that make a shopper’s shortlist without necessarily determining where the shopper buys them.

That distinction matters for payments as well. The merchant, bank or payment provider may encounter the consumer at checkout only after search engines, AI tools, marketplaces and other digital services have already influenced the purchase. The report described millennials as moving among aisles, apps, search engines, AI assistants and online marketplaces rather than following a single shopping channel.

For merchants, the emerging issue is therefore bigger than adding another acquisition channel. Product information, pricing, offers, rewards and payment options can become part of the decision before a consumer reaches the merchant. AI’s early role in millennial shopping suggests that competition for the transaction is beginning further away from checkout, even when the purchase ultimately ends at a physical register.

That is a different challenge from simply moving more commerce online. Millennials are showing that discovery can become AI-driven faster than purchasing becomes digital-only.

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