How can Indian brands stay visible as AI rewires consumer choice?

Over 80% of consumers use AI for shopping, testing how brands surface online.

Brands in India face pressure to rethink reach and relevance as artificial intelligence (AI) pulls product discovery and purchase decisions into a single interaction.

“The commercial impact is that immediate purchase decisions are being directly influenced by AI suggestions,” consulting firm Kearney said in a March report. This behaviour is prevalent across both high‑ticket items and daily essentials, it added.

Kearney said more than 80% of surveyed consumers have used AI for shopping‑related decisions, with almost 70% expecting their reliance to increase.

India accounts for about 12% of global AI users, with almost one in four consumers aged 18 to 34 using AI platforms. Rather than browsing multiple websites or apps, shoppers are asking AI tools for recommendations and trusting the responses they get.

Global AI query volumes are projected to have surpassef 1.2 trillion in 2025 and may top 5 trillion by 2030, approaching the scale of traditional search engines.

Prompts to ChatGPT in Asia rose about 70% in the first half of 2025 to 29 million, whilst shopping‑related prompts almost doubled in volume within six months, according to Bain & Co., Inc. citing data compiled by Sensor Tower.

Usage is strongest in high‑consideration categories, Kearney said. Adoption runs from about 58% in food and beverage to 74% in electronics, where AI plays a central role in comparing options and narrowing choices.

That shift alters how consumers discover brands. AI systems filter, rank, and recommend products, meaning decisions can be shaped by algorithmic outputs before shoppers encounter brand messaging. Kearney found more than 60% of consumers trust AI recommendations as much as, or more than, traditional expert sources.

For brands, the risk is exclusion. Discovery and decision‑making can collapse into one interaction, leaving brands absent from consideration if AI does not surface them.

The report said companies must ensure accurate representation across the data sources that AI systems draw on, from product attributes to third‑party reviews.

Marketing strategies are being pushed away from campaign bursts towards continuous presence. Structured and verifiable information that machines can process is taking priority alongside storytelling aimed at human audiences.

Leading multinationals are already treating this as infrastructure rather than experimentation, Kearney said. It cited LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, which has built a centralised Google Cloud data platform spanning 75 luxury brands to support predictive and generative AI for personalisation and operations.

AI recommendation loops can also reinforce market leaders. Frequently suggested brands risk becoming default choices, raising the cost for smaller or later entrants to challenge established perceptions.

As a result, companies may need to adopt generative engine optimisation, a discipline focused on ensuring brands are recommended by AI systems rather than merely listed in search results. For Indian brands, the shift may determine who remains visible as AI becomes the front door to commerce.

Questions to ponder:

1. How will AI‑led recommendations determine which brands reach the consumer consideration set in India?
2. What capabilities will brands need to stay recommended as AI becomes the main gateway to discovery?