Southeast Asian Shoppers Still Trust People Over AI, Even as GenAI Discovery Grows

New research on Southeast Asia's $219 billion e-commerce market finds generative AI is becoming a genuine entry point for product discovery — used by 24% of shoppers overall, rising to 28% specifically at the product-research stage — while trust in actual people still decides most final purchase decisions.

The Distinction That Actually Matters

AI adoption for discovery (finding and narrowing options) and AI adoption for the final purchase decision are genuinely different behaviors, and this research separates them clearly rather than reporting one blended "AI shopping" statistic. Shoppers are comfortable letting AI help them find and compare products, but still lean on human trust signals — reviews, recommendations, influencer or peer opinion — to actually decide. That's a meaningfully different picture than "AI is replacing the shopping journey."

• For retailers optimizing for AI discovery specifically, this research suggests investment should prioritize being findable and well-represented in AI search/recommendation results, while still investing in the human trust signals (reviews, social proof, influencer partnerships) that close the actual sale
• The 24% overall versus 28% at research-stage gap is itself informative — it shows AI usage concentrating specifically at the top of the funnel, not spread evenly across the full shopping journey