Retail chains have invested significant resources in understanding how consumers make purchasing decisions. In doing so, they have built strong brands, developed loyalty programs, studied customer journeys, and refined strategies to capture attention and preference. Over time, businesses have come to appreciate the immense value of having a deep understanding of their customers.
Yet we are now entering a new reality that may fundamentally reshape the rules of the game, as consumers begin delegating part of their purchasing decisions to Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems.
McKinsey’s latest report on the future of European retail concludes that AI is no longer merely a tool for operational efficiency; it has become a structural driver of economic transformation. Just as electrification shaped the Industrial Revolution and the internet powered the Digital Revolution, AI is simultaneously redefining how businesses operate, how consumers make choices, and how value is created across every market.
Nothing illustrates the scale of this transformation better than the data. Today, 84% of European consumers already use AI in their daily lives, while around 50% rely on AI systems to research products, compare alternatives, and gather information before making a purchase. This is no longer an emerging technology. It is a large-scale behavioral shift.
Many organizations still view AI primarily through the lens of productivity. Automating tasks, reducing costs, and accelerating processes are all legitimate objectives. However, the real transformation is not taking place solely within businesses. It lies in the way consumers search for, compare, and select products and services. When a consumer asks ChatGPT for recommendations on choosing a supermarket, a smartphone, a coffee machine, or a holiday destination, they no longer browse dozens of websites or compare hundreds of options. Instead, they receive a curated set of recommendations filtered by algorithms. This means that the competitive battleground is gradually shifting from visibility to recommendation.
In other words, companies that once focused on being found through search engines must now ensure they are recommended by AI engines.
This shift already has tangible implications for major retailers operating in Portugal. Continente, through the wealth of data generated by the Continente Card, possesses one of the country’s most comprehensive consumer intelligence platforms. Pingo Doce benefits from the strength of its private-label brands and the close customer relationships it has built over decades. Mercadona, which continues to expand rapidly across Portugal, differentiates itself through the consistency of its customer experience and the simplicity of its value proposition. Worten has developed an exceptional depth of product information in the consumer electronics sector, while IKEA has demonstrated how AI can transform the customer experience by reducing interior design processes from approximately six hours to just thirty minutes.
However, this revolution extends far beyond grocery and specialty retail.
The central question is straightforward: when a consumer asks an AI assistant which is the best Portuguese coffee brand, the best home décor brand, the most suitable supermarket, or the best retailer for purchasing a computer, will your brand be part of the answer?
For marketing and customer experience professionals, the message is clear. The time has come to audit brand visibility across AI engines, strengthen loyalty programs, structure content for intelligent systems, and transform customer experience into a competitive advantage that is difficult to replicate.
Until now, brands have competed for shelf space in stores, screen space on consumers’ devices, and rankings on search engine results pages. In the years ahead, they will compete for something even more valuable: a place among the recommendations generated by the intelligent agents that increasingly guide consumers’ decisions.
And, as with every major economic revolution, the winners will not necessarily be the largest companies. They will be those that first understand that marketing is no longer competing solely for consumers’ attention, it is also competing for the trust of the algorithms that advise them.
Pedro Celeste, Professor at Católica-Lisbon SBE