For years, retailers have invested heavily in customer service chatbots. The goal was simple: answer questions faster, reduce support costs, and improve the shopping experience.
However, consumer behavior does not perfectly align with this direction.
According to a new Gartner survey, customers are now three times more likely to use third-party generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT or Gemini, than a brand’s own chatbot when looking for customer support. At the same time, while use of third-party AI assistants has doubled over the past year, the adoption of company-owned chatbots has remained largely unchanged since 2022.
For retailers, this is more than a customer service trend. It suggests that the first interaction between consumers and brands may increasingly happen outside the brand’s own digital channels.
Traditional customer service assumed that shoppers would visit a retailer’s website, open a chatbot, and ask questions there.
Generative AI changes that behavior.
Instead of navigating to multiple websites, consumers can ask a single AI assistant to compare products, explain return policies, summarize reviews, or recommend the best option based on their needs. In many cases, they receive an answer before ever visiting the retailer’s website.
This changes where brands compete for customer attention.
Rather than optimizing only their own chatbot, retailers may need to ensure their information is understandable and accessible to the AI assistants consumers already prefer.
The Gartner findings do not necessarily mean brand chatbots are becoming obsolete.
Company-owned AI assistants still have direct access to order history, loyalty accounts, delivery information, and other customer-specific data that third-party AI tools cannot easily access.
Instead, the two types of AI may serve different purposes.
Third-party assistants increasingly help consumers research and compare before making a purchase. Brand chatbots remain valuable for account management, post-purchase support, returns, and personalized services.
The challenge is to make these experiences work together rather than treat them as competing solutions.
As AI assistants answer more shopping questions directly, structured product information becomes increasingly important.
AI systems can only recommend products they understand.
Accurate specifications, detailed attributes, high-quality images, availability, pricing, compatibility information, and consistent descriptions all improve AI’s interpretation of products across platforms.
This represents an important opportunity for brands.
Instead of optimizing only for search engines or marketplace algorithms, businesses increasingly need to optimize product information for AI-powered discovery.
For Icecat’s audience, this reinforces the growing value of standardized product data that can be understood across multiple retail channels and AI systems.
The report reflects a broader evolution in digital commerce.
Retailers once focused on improving their own websites and mobile apps. Today, customers may begin their journey in AI assistants, social platforms, marketplaces, or conversational interfaces before ever reaching a brand’s digital properties.
That means customer experience extends beyond channels a retailer directly controls.
Businesses that provide consistent, structured, and trustworthy product information are more likely to remain visible wherever those conversations take place.
The Gartner findings suggest that customer service is becoming part of a much larger AI ecosystem.
Consumers increasingly choose the AI assistant they already trust rather than switching to a separate chatbot for each brand. That changes how companies think about customer engagement.
For e-commerce businesses, success may depend less on building the smartest standalone chatbot and more on making product information, policies, and support content accessible across the AI platforms customers already use.
As conversational AI becomes a common starting point for shopping, the brands that provide clear, structured, and reliable information will be best positioned to stay part of the conversation.
Read further: News, AI, AI Chatbots, e-commerce, ecommerce, Icecat, product content
