Most shoppers say a chatbot talked them out of a purchase
A survey of 2,338 US consumers suggests buyers are checking your business with AI before they pay.
Most people who use AI chatbots say one has stopped them buying something. A survey of 2,338 US consumers by Semrush's Exploding Topics team found 57.5% of AI users said information from a chatbot made them decide not to buy. Among people who use AI at least weekly, that rose to 69.7%.
The survey was shared by Alex Groberman (@alexgroberman), who framed it as a new step in the buying process that most businesses are not measuring. Someone finds you, likes what they see, then opens ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Perplexity for a second opinion before they hand over money.
The AI background check
47.54% of all consumers surveyed said they at least sometimes ask an AI chatbot about a company or seller before making a purchase. Among AI users that figure is 65.42%. They are asking whether the business is legitimate, what the reviews say, what the downsides are and whether there is a better option.
The effect runs both ways. 57.51% of AI users said they had bought something after an AI chatbot recommended it, and 59.27% said an AI recommendation introduced them to a brand or product they did not know before. So the same conversation that loses one seller a sale can hand a competitor a customer it never had.
Google is not going away
65.01% of AI users said they had replaced at least some product-related Google searches with chatbot conversations. But the study did not find that people had abandoned Google. For many, AI sits alongside it. That matches the earlier point that ordinary good SEO is still the foundation for showing up in AI answers.
What to do about it
Groberman's argument is that chatbots pull from your site plus everything else about you online, including reviews, comparisons, directories, forums and news coverage. You control the first part completely.
So start there. Open your own website and check that it plainly states what you do, who you serve, what it costs, and how you compare to the alternatives. If your pricing is only available after a sales call, an AI cannot repeat it, and it will answer the question from somewhere else.
Then go ask the chatbots about your own business. Type your company name into ChatGPT or Gemini and ask whether it is a good choice for your typical customer. Whatever comes back is roughly what your next buyer is reading. If it is wrong or thin, that tells you exactly which page to write next.
You can win a customer on Google and still lose them when they ask ChatGPT whether they should buy.