UK retailers are forecasting stronger online sales growth in 2026 as adoption of artificial Intelligence accelerates across the ecommerce value chain. New research from Metapack and Retail Economics links this optimism directly to changing consumer behaviour, with almost half of UK adults under 45 already using artificial Intelligence tools for product research, price comparison and delivery exploration. In response, retailers are positioning artificial Intelligence investment as a core driver of conversion, delivery performance and customer loyalty, moving it from experimentation toward operational execution.
Retailers are committing significant resources to keep pace with these shifts, with 90% globally planning to boost spending on artificial Intelligence to optimise ecommerce operations over the next 12 to 24 months. The study, based on surveys of over 8,000 consumers and 400 retailers across eight international markets, finds that artificial Intelligence has moved into the mainstream, with 78% of consumers globally using tools such as ChatGPT in the past 12 months, rising to 93% among those under 35. In the UK, 30% of adults are open to artificial Intelligence acting as a personal shopping agent to recommend products, check delivery and returns options, and even complete certain purchases once preferences are set. Chat-based platforms including ChatGPT are already generating 50.2 million monthly shopping-intent visits in the UK, placing them alongside the country’s largest ecommerce sites as a retail channel.
The report highlights that UK consumers are among the most confident in Europe about artificial Intelligence-assisted ecommerce, with almost two-thirds (64%) expressing trust in artificial Intelligence tools. Retailers are deploying artificial Intelligence to refine product discovery, optimise fulfilment, improve warehouse efficiency and increase delivery speed, yet adoption remains uneven and exposes a competitive divide. More than a third of European retailers (36%) cite keeping pace with artificial Intelligence and emerging technologies as a major challenge for 2026, compared with 33% in North America, and barriers differ by company size. Larger retailers (£500m+ turnover) most often point to skills shortages and the complexity of integrating artificial Intelligence with legacy systems (54%), while smaller firms (under £100m turnover) highlight high development costs (35%) and data security or compliance concerns. These obstacles are reflected in maturity levels, with 28% of North American retailers having artificial Intelligence embedded and scaled across multiple functions, compared with just 17% in Europe, underscoring pressure on European players to accelerate execution as artificial Intelligence reshapes retail strategy from discovery to delivery.
