AI Makes the Holiday Shopping List but Who Gets the Sale?

# AI Makes the Holiday Shopping List but Who Gets the Sale?

> Evidence tier: B1
> Evidence type: PYMNTS Intelligence research summary with consumer and merchant sample sizes disclosed
> Source: [PYMNTS](https://www.pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2026/ai-makes-the-holiday-shopping-list-but-who-gets-the-sale)
> Published: 2026-09-15
> Captured: 2026-09-15T12:37:20.073Z

## Source summary

PYMNTS Intelligence summarizes research fielded between September 2025 and August 2026, including a latest survey of 2,061 U.S. consumers and 60 U.S. retail merchants. It says 46% of AI-assisted shoppers used AI to find the best price or deal, while 53% said a lower price could move them from a large marketplace to a brand site. Only 28% of surveyed merchants would expose their full catalog to agents on existing terms; 33% would use different prices, promotions or delivery choices, and another 28% would limit agents to selected products. Ninety-three percent said the agent provider should cover loss from a wrong choice, and 80% expected that provider to verify the agent's authority.

## Why it matters

The findings identify concrete payment-design questions for delegated commerce: catalog access, pricing parity, consumer intent, agent authentication and liability when an automated purchase goes wrong. They are survey responses, not observed checkout behavior or proof that Mastercard, Visa, Google, OpenAI or Stripe systems have gained adoption. The article is U.S.-focused, gives a small merchant sample, and reports no transaction volume, conversion outcome, fraud rate, dispute result, market share or cross-border breakdown.

## Key numbers

- **U.S. consumers in the latest survey:** 2,061
- **U.S. retail merchants in the latest survey:** 60
- **AI-assisted shoppers using AI for the best price or deal:** 46%
- **Merchants assigning wrong-choice loss to the agent provider:** 93%
- **Merchants expecting the provider to verify agent authority:** 80%

## Topics and entities

- Industry lane: Agentic payments
- Entities: PYMNTS Intelligence
- AI-native finance
- Payment infrastructure
- Cross-border payments

## Evidence and credibility note

Readable PYMNTS Intelligence research summary. Sample sizes and selected findings are disclosed, but the results are survey responses rather than observed transactions; the merchant sample is small and no cross-border or production outcome is reported.

Date evidence: PYMNTS article metadata records 2026-09-15T08:01:33+00:00 and the visible page is dated September 15, 2026

## First-party corroboration

No directly corresponding A1 company announcement is currently linked.

## Original-source traceback

[Open the original PYMNTS report](https://www.pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2026/ai-makes-the-holiday-shopping-list-but-who-gets-the-sale)

---

This is a structured Payments Hot Markdown source summary derived from external reporting. Use the original link above to read the publisher's article; copyright remains with the original publisher.