“The impact of AI extends beyond improving the search experience, altering how consumers seek and interact with search platforms, and how marketers approach visibility,” said Noam Dorros, Director Analyst in the Gartner Marketing practice. “Digital marketing strategies must evolve to not only optimize for these AI-powered results, but also to reinforce brand trust through comprehensive and reliable information, recognizing that not all consumers embrace AI summaries equally.

”While AI-powered results represent a significant evolution in the search landscape, their role in product research remains limited. Consumers find AI summaries most useful for initial product exploration, but the perceived usefulness of these summaries declines when evaluating value options, and they drop further when finalizing a purchase (see Figure 1).