GPT considered as helpful for consumers’ decision making

There is an increasing reliance on AI for consumer purchase decisions.

Consumer trends are increasingly shifting towards relying on artificial intelligence (AI) for their decision-making– a consideration for companies to adapt technological advancements to enhance consumers’ shopping experience.

Euromonitor's global consumer trends report for 2024 highlights six key trends affecting purchasing behaviour. Among these, the use of AI, particularly GPT, has emerged as a crucial factor in consumer decision-making.

“The launch of GPT, which is now available to the private consumers, is an increasingly reliable choice for consumers to make their purchasing decision. So they can search for the product available, as well as the customer review within a very short period of time,” Herbert Yum, Research Manager at Euromonitor, said.

Yum explains that this technology makes a powerful tool for businesses to enhance the customer journey, as GPT's role extends beyond facilitating consumer decisions; it also impacts how businesses communicate with customers and develop products.

"It is also important for the company to embrace this technology, not only a way to communicate with their customers, but also to empower their internal product development process, as they can use this to to evaluate not only what the customer wants, but also their internal information so that they can evaluate the entire value chain within a short period of time,” he cited.

Yum said that while GPT has a first-mover advantage and a strong position in the market, the long-term profitability and competition from other service providers developing generative AI functions remain areas to watch.

“There is a controversial discussion in terms of are they going to be profitable in the longer term future. And also there are lots of other service providers taking very swift actions in terms of developing their own generative AI functions. So therefore, this is still uncertain,” he said.

Yum discussed how businesses can adapt to the 'delightful distractions' trend which revolves around offering consumers moments of joy amidst daily stress and uncertainty.

“For companies to cater these consumer behaviour changes. What they can do is to add a little bit of joy for a moment to the customer journey, not only when they purchase the product, but also through the daily communication with consumers through marketing campaigns,” he said.

Among the six key trends, Yum believes 'value hackers' could be the most influential in 2024 as consumers are becoming more cautious about spending and are seeking ways to maximise the value of their money following the high inflation globally.

“This is extremely impactful because this year we are on, we can see that many countries across the world are facing high inflation and people are more cautious in terms of what they want to spend,” he explained.

Yum added that the value hackers trend raises alarm to companies that consumers are now smarter when it comes to their purchases.

“Therefore, the companies will need to rethink their own value chain in order to provide a better quality and a personalised product and services to the right consumer in order to maximise the value for each dollar value that they pay,” he ended.