Did you know that... According to new research by Q&A Retail, covered by Ecommerce News, 50 percent of Dutch consumers now use generative AI tools during their shopping journey. A year and a half ago, that number was one in three. The shift is happening fast, and for e-commerce businesses, it changes the rules.
Dutch consumers are using tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, and Perplexity when buying online. ChatGPT leads with 57 percent adoption, followed by Gemini at 26 percent and Copilot at 22 percent.
But the more important finding is not which tool people use. It is what they use it for, and when.
Shoppers primarily use AI to look up product information, compare options, and find inspiration before making a purchase decision. AI is acting as a product advisor, not just a search engine.
Among younger consumers aged 18 to 34, adoption is at 83 percent. In the middle age group it is 51 percent. Among consumers over 55, it drops to 22 percent. If your target audience skews younger, this is not a trend to monitor. It is already your reality.
When asked where they start their search when orienting toward a purchase, 20 percent of respondents said they begin with an AI tool. Google is still the most common starting point at 26 percent, but it has dropped from 36 percent in a short period of time. That means a growing share of your potential customers never visit a search results page. They ask an AI, get an answer, and act on it. Moreover, if your products are not showing up in those answers, you are invisible to that part of the market.
This shift has two direct implications for how you run your digital commerce operation.
Product content becomes even more important.
AI tools pull answers from what is publicly available about your products. That means your product descriptions, specifications, FAQs, and structured data need to be accurate, detailed, and consistent across your catalogue. Thin or missing content does not just hurt your Google ranking. It also means AI tools cannot give useful answers about your products at all.
If you manage a large catalogue through a PIM like Ergonode, this is exactly where a well-structured content setup pays off. Clean, complete, and consistently synced product data gives AI tools what they need to recommend your products.
GEO matters alongside SEO.
Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO, is the practice of making your content visible and usable within AI-generated answers. It builds on SEO fundamentals but goes further. You are not just optimizing for a ranked list of links. You are optimizing for an AI that summarizes, compares, and recommends.
The categories where AI is used most heavily right now are electronics and technology, travel and leisure, and home and interior. If you operate in one of these spaces, the window to get ahead of this is now.
The research also points to something beyond external AI tools. Retailers like Coolblue and FuturumShop are already deploying AI assistants directly on their own websites. Bol is preparing to launch its own shopping agent called Billie.
John Terra, operational director at Q&A Retail, puts it clearly: consumers are asking their questions earlier in the journey, and they are asking AI, not your sales team or your webshop. Retailers who integrate AI well, both in their content strategy and on their own platform, will be better positioned to convert the customers who do reach their store.
This does not require a complete overhaul. It starts with the basics. Audit your product content. Are descriptions complete? Are FAQs answered clearly? Is your data consistent across channels? If you use a PIM or an integration layer like Alumio, is everything syncing correctly and fully? From there, think about how your store presents information to both people and machines. Good product content and a clear site structure serve both.
If you want to talk through what this means for your specific setup, we are happy to help.
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Source: Ecommerce News — Helft Nederlanders laat AI mee shoppen