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The B2C Buyer Experience Report 2026
How AI is being embraced by consumers and what brands need to do to meet their expectations.
After a year of rapid AI rollouts and innovation, consumers are taking notice
A year ago, integrating AI into the buying journey was still debatable for consumer brands. They were rushing to deploy it, while consumers were openly resistant, and marketing and CX leadership anxiously analysed whether the risk was worth it.
A year later, the debate has quieted, in part because the AI got better. It’s faster, more polished, and more useful. So good, in fact, that seven in ten UK consumers can’t reliably tell when they’ve been talking to AI or a person. And the share who say their last AI interaction made things worse has dropped year-over-year.
The brands that deployed AI effectively over the last year have been rewarded by consumers grateful for rapid, reliable service. In many cases, it’s so good that consumers just don’t care whether it was AI helping them or not. But when AI interactions go wrong, keep in mind that consumers are quick to blame the brand that chose to deploy it, not the vendor who built it for them, by a margin of more than 3 to 1.
This changes the calculus of AI investment for marketing and CX leaders. AI has cemented its importance in the buying journey, but a new question—and risk—has emerged: is your AI good enough to protect your brand and hand off to a human when it can’t?
Read on for what consumers told us, what’s changed since 2025, and where the data points your CX investments next.
At a glance
Most consumers have encountered a brand’s AI, and most don’t mind anymore
The negative sentiment that defined the 2025 conversation about brand AI has softened across most measures. Fewer UK consumers feel forced to use a brand’s AI, and the share who said AI made their buying experience worse has dropped from 24% to 20%.
And yet, the share who say AI made their experience meaningfully better has held flat at 42%. The bulk of the movement is from “worse” to “neutral.” AI is no longer making a bad impression—it’s making no impression at all. For consumer-facing technology like this, going unnoticed is a reasonable goal.
My focus is not actually on who I interact with but how quickly and accurately I get a result.
Millennial · financial services / telecom / travel purchase
Many UK consumers can’t tell when they’re talking to AI
One of the most striking findings in the 2026 data is also the simplest. When we asked UK consumers whether they had ever realised, after the fact, that an interaction they thought was with a human was actually with AI, only 30% said yes. The other 70% either said they have never had that realisation or weren’t sure.
This indicates that AI technology has crossed a quality threshold. A year ago, brand AI was identifiable by its stiffness, scripts, and a general refusal to deviate from preset paths. Today, voice and text AI is good enough that most UK consumers can’t reliably distinguish it from a human agent. That’s a win for the technology and a win for the brands that deployed it carefully.
It doesn’t matter. For most issues, AI can sort it, and humans can sort it. For me, it’s irrelevant who sorts my issues as long as they are sorted.
Millennial · financial services / travel purchase
When AI fails, brands take the blame by a wide margin
We asked consumers who they primarily blame when an AI interaction with a brand goes badly. The result is a wake-up call for any CMO or CX leader who treats AI deployment as a vendor decision.
“Blame the brand” outpaces blame the AI by more than 3 to 1. Add the consumers who hold the brand at least partially accountable, and roughly seven in ten UK consumers will tie a bad AI experience back to the company that chose to deploy it. The vendor takes none of the heat.
If I’m spending a lot of money or committing long term I would expect a personal touch from a company as this requires relationship and trust. I would feel they didn’t value me as a customer.
Gen X · automotive / insurance purchase
Consumers want AI to introduce itself
UK consumers have definitely made up their minds about whether AI should identify itself in customer interactions. Over 80% say it matters that a brand’s AI clearly identifies itself. They’re not waiting for regulators to force the issue. They already expect disclosure, so for brands, this is a low-cost, high-trust tactic to deploy now.
If I believe it to be a human but discover it is AI, then [that is] very negative, if I know upfront it is AI, then [it’s] positive.
Gen X · financial services purchase
“Forced” feelings are easing, but the volume hasn’t dropped
A year ago, 59% of UK consumers said they felt forced to interact with a brand’s AI most or all of the time. This year, that figure has dropped to 51%.
The risk for brands is complacency. Consumers are fickle, and over 40% still feel that brands using AI to assist them value them less, which should serve as a reminder that improvement must be continuous to keep your customers satisfied.
I have had bad experiences where I have been forced into loops as the AI was following a script where a human operator would have been able to resolve it faster.
Millennial · telecom / travel purchase
Consumers prefer AI for simplicity and speed
We asked UK consumers when they actually prefer AI to a human, and the answers are remarkably consistent with last year—simplicity and speed win.
The “avoiding waiting on hold” finding is the one that should move investment decisions. Roughly a third of UK consumers will choose AI specifically to avoid a hold queue, meaning brands without a competent AI frontline are losing good leads at the moment they’re most likely to convert.
AI for simple questions and human assistance for complex questions.
Gen Z · multiple categories
Speed is the conversion battleground
If there’s a single piece of data in this report that should change a marketing budget, it’s the gap between what consumers expect and what they actually get in terms of response speed after filling out a lead form.
There is a 20-percentage-point gap between expectation and delivery, and a near-universal willingness to walk if a faster option appears.
What do UK consumers do when the response is too slow? 40% try to contact the brand again, but 29% move to a competitor, and another 3% give up on the purchase entirely. 28% wait it out. The cost of a slow response is a lost conversion.
I usually assume they’re either too busy, disorganized, or not that interested in my business. If it takes too long, I start looking at other options instead of waiting around.
Gen Z · travel purchase
Consumers still prefer to call when they need help
For all the talk of digital-first buying journeys, UK consumers still pick up the phone when they need help with a high-stakes purchase, though the margin is tighter than it has been. 36% prefer calling when they have a problem and need help—more than any other channel. Email holds an unusually strong second position in the UK at 20%, well above what we observed in 2025, and a notable cultural divergence in how UK buyers prefer to escalate.
The age pattern strengthens the story. 46% of UK Boomers prefer calling for help, and Gen X tracks closely behind at 42%. Younger UK consumers split more evenly across channels, with email taking a meaningful share at 21% for Gen Z and 22% for Millennials. For UK brands targeting older consumers, phone and the in-person handoff carry the day. For younger UK consumers, calling still leads but email is a meaningful escalation path that has to work as well as voice.
I would pick human agent interaction over AI during a high-stakes situation because a human can better understand emotions, handle complex issues, and make more thoughtful decisions.
Millennial · automotive purchase
Consumers mostly call for more information
When UK consumers call a business during a high-stakes purchase, they’re most often seeking more information. These are expensive, even life-altering purchases, and consumers want to be confident they’re making the right decision.
Disturbingly, 24% called because the information they needed wasn’t available online, a stat that has barely moved in three years despite continued investment in digital experiences.
Closing this online information gap is one of the highest-leverage CX investments a brand can make.
I feel as if my query or purchase is not valued, I am anxious that the information I get is not complete or accurate.
Gen X · insurance / travel purchase
Generative AI use when researching purchases is growing rapidly
We asked consumers whether they had used a generative AI tool, like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude, to help research a high-stakes purchase. The result is one of the biggest year-over-year shifts in the UK dataset.
A year ago, generative AI was something younger consumers experimented with. This year, it’s a default research step for most adults.
This is a marketing problem as much as a sales one. Brands need to know what generative AI says about them, because their prospects already do.
The Boomer story: AI is winning the holdouts
The biggest generational shift in this year’s UK data isn’t among the digital natives. It’s among the older holdouts.
While UK Boomers are more open to using AI, they haven’t softened on every AI-related front. 80% of UK Boomers still prefer a human representative when both options are equally available. Nearly 90% say human connection is important during a high-stakes purchase.
The picture that emerges is of an older audience that is now using generative AI as a research tool, while still preferring human-led conversations when they’re ready to make the decision. The implication for UK brands targeting older consumers: AI matters at the discovery stage, humans matter at the close.
The human-preference gradient extends across every generation, though. The buying journey may be increasingly AI-mediated upstream, but the moment of decision is still a moment of human contact for the audiences brands depend on most.
If the questions are straightforward, I am quite happy to deal with AI. However, if I want a bespoke deal, it can’t respond as a human could.
Boomer · telecom purchase
Human connection still wins where it counts
For all the AI advances, UK consumers haven’t changed their mind about what they want at the moment of a high-stakes purchase decision. 58% prefer human help to AI when both are equally available, and 83% say human connection during a high-stakes purchase is important or very important.
These numbers are essentially flat versus 2025. Across every generation and industry, UK consumers continue to anchor the moments that matter on human contact. The 2026 data simply adds a layer of nuance: AI is welcome in the journey, especially upstream, but the human stays in the loop when the customer is ready to commit.
I’m human. Another human would immediately understand and empathise.
Gen X · insurance purchase
Consumers are more tolerant of bad experiences, but they’re hanging up faster
These two data points look contradictory at first, but tell a connected story on a second look.
UK consumers will not wait. They expect to be heard, and if they’re not, they’ll abandon the call but not necessarily abandon the brand.
UK consumers became substantially more forgiving year-over-year, a 30-point drop in the share saying they’d stop after one bad experience. But if you don’t answer their call quickly, you’ll never get a chance to make that first impression.
I usually feel a bit ignored or think they may not value my enquiry, or feel they are busy. It can also make me lose interest or look for another business.
Millennial · automotive purchase
AI voice agents have arrived, and consumers are open to them
This year, for the first time, we asked UK consumers whether they had spoken to an AI voice agent on the phone during a recent purchase journey. The result confirms what brand-side data has been hinting at for months.
That’s 46% of UK consumers who have either definitely or possibly spoken to an AI voice agent in the last year—meaningful adoption for a technology that barely existed twelve months ago. Among UK consumers who interacted with an AI voice agent, the modal answer when asked how the interaction compared to a human is “about the same.”
I didn’t even realise I was chatting with an AI agent until the end of the conversation—it went really well.
Gen Z · insurance / telecom / travel purchase
AI has found its place in the buying journey, but it can’t replace the human touch
The 2026 data shows that we’re at an inflection point. Consumers demand fast service when making important purchase decisions, and they’re more open to getting it from AI than ever. As always, they also want to choose how and when to engage with your brand.
What it boils down to is properly balancing fast AI automation and empathetic human connections. One does not replace the other. AI must be deployed well enough that consumers hardly notice it, human help must be available whenever they need it, and every touchpoint has to be connected from clicks to AI chats to calls and conversions to make the journey seamless. The more effectively you can connect with your buyers at every moment, the more likely you are to convert them.
Discover Invoca’s AI →Methodology
For this report, Invoca surveyed 1,356 consumers in the US and UK who researched and made a high-stakes purchase in the last 12 months across seven industries: automotive, healthcare, home services, insurance, financial services, telecommunications, and travel. Only UK data is used in this version of the report, representing 663 respondents. A high-stakes purchase is one where consumers take time to weigh options, research, and put more thought into the decision because of cost or complexity, generally above £500, or above £1,000 for travel. Results may not total 100% due to rounding and multi-select question formats. The field survey was performed via the Gather conversational survey platform between 8 and 22 May 2026.
Respondents by industry
Respondents by generation
Results may not total 100% due to rounding and multi-select question formats. Multi-select questions are clearly flagged on each chart. Year-over-year comparisons reflect minor differences in question wording where noted in the body of the report. The “industry” cut is based on the high-stakes purchase the respondent made in the last 12 months and is multi-select, so a single respondent could appear in more than one industry if they purchased across categories. Generational definitions follow the Pew Research Center cutoffs. Powered by Gather (gatherhq.com).