Sixty-seven percent of consumers would use AI more for shopping if it carried fraud protection, according to a new survey of 2,000 shoppers by consumer financing company Synchrony and Oxford Economics. The finding frames the central commercial question for brands and retailers building agentic commerce: adoption depends less on capability than on demonstrated security, transparency and control.

The "2026 AI in Commerce Study" found that 82 percent of respondents rank data security as a top concern, while 77 percent cite transparency. Only 58 percent point to time savings as the leading factor. Current usage clusters in research tasks — product search, item comparison and price optimization — rather than transactional delegation.

The spending ceiling is sharp. For purchases under $50, 47 percent of consumers would let AI suggest options for review and approval, and 34 percent would let AI act on preferences and past behavior. Above $5,000, 46 percent would not use AI at all. Forty-three percent of respondents said they are comfortable letting AI purchase up to a preset limit, and 37 percent would allow AI to automatically buy regularly used products.

Where consumers do see value, it is transactional plumbing rather than discretionary buying. Seventy-nine percent are willing to let AI automatically apply discounts, and 74 percent would let it apply loyalty points or rewards. Further down the funnel, 51 percent are open to AI recommending a new credit card, and 48 percent would let AI check whether they are prequalified for one — data points that matter directly for private-label and co-brand card issuers competing for placement inside agent-driven checkout flows.

The survey also measured which institutions can credibly host AI shopping assistants. Fifty-eight percent of respondents would trust an assistant from a technology company, 56 percent from a retailer or brand, 55 percent from a general AI platform and 55 percent from their primary bank. A bank with no existing relationship trails at 38 percent — a signal that incumbent relationships, not technology alone, determine entry position.

"Consumers are telling us the future of AI shopping will be won by the most trusted experience," said Nimrod Barak, chief AI officer of Synchrony. "As AI moves from helping shoppers compare to acting on their behalf, trust becomes the real differentiator. The companies that build protection, approval and accountability from the start will be better positioned to earn consumer confidence, drive growth and win in AI commerce."

Usage behavior already correlates with willingness to delegate. Among consumers already using AI, only 34 percent cite a preference for making shopping decisions themselves as a barrier, versus 52 percent of non-users. That gap suggests early AI adopters form the natural first market for agent-executed purchases, and that brands sequencing their commerce roadmaps should treat existing AI users as the initial test cohort.

The report sets out operational guidance for retailers and brands: lead with protection by positioning fraud prevention, consent and recourse "front and center"; embed AI in brands, banks and platforms consumers already use rather than launching standalone assistants; and plan for failure modes. "Make it easy to see what the AI agent did, understand why it acted and resolve issues quickly," the authors wrote — an accountability requirement that translates directly into agent-log design, dispute workflows and customer service staffing.

For compliance and channel teams, the practical readout is that consent architecture, preset spending limits and audit trails are not regulatory overhead but conversion levers. The authors state plainly: "AI adoption will depend in large part on consumer trust."

Synchrony, for its part, is building toward the agentic layer itself. The company said it is developing capabilities to make financing, rewards and offers "recognizable and reliable when AI agents shop on a customer's behalf, helping brands compete on more than price." It is also working with open-source and industry groups to advance interoperable standards that embed fraud protection, transparency, consumer control and accountability into emerging AI shopping experiences.

The survey lands amid a shifting federal posture. This week, President Donald Trump convened executives from Alphabet, Meta, SpaceX, Nvidia, OpenAI and Anthropic to sign the "White House Accord on Super Intelligence," a non-binding agreement that assigns safety governance to the companies themselves, with internal monitoring, third-party audits and board-level oversight. Trump, who called AI safety concerns a "hoax," also announced the rebranding of artificial intelligence as "super intelligence" for government agencies, with private-sector adoption encouraged.

For brands, the combination is telling: absent binding external oversight, the trust mechanisms that Synchrony's survey shows driving adoption — fraud protection, transparency and recourse — will be largely self-constructed by the companies competing in AI commerce.