Vietnam’s shoppers are asking AI first, but Google still gets the last word

What happened

Before a Vietnamese shopper adds anything to a cart these days, there is a good chance a chatbot has been consulted. Read the rest of the survey, though, and a more nuanced picture emerges: AI has joined the shopping journey, but it has not taken it over. Google is an Internet and software company based in Mountain View.

As many as 62 per cent of Vietnamese buyers use AI, including generative AI, to research purchases before they buy, according to a new survey by Ho Chi Minh City-based market research firm Q&Me. Only 3 per cent of respondents said they “never” use AI for pre-purchase research.

Frequent use peaks among people in their 30s (68 per cent), while those in their 40s are more likely to say they use it “sometimes” (44 per cent). Also Read: The invisible shopper rewriting Asia’s e-commerce playbook On the surface, it is another data point for the thesis that AI chats are becoming the new starting point for online shopping .