Some 45% of current artificial intelligence users in Spain have used it to help with a purchase, according to the study IAB Spain and Elogia presented on Oct. 6, 2026 . That group represents 23% of Spanish internet users aged 16 to 75. Help with researching an offer has advanced without the buyer necessarily surrendering the final decision: among those who have tried it, 65% would not allow an agent to purchase for them.
The three percentages have different bases. The first describes current AI users; the second, all internet users in the stated age range; the third, people with assisted-purchase experience. The announcement does not specify the sample or exact fieldwork dates for these declared responses. It is not a transaction record capable of assigning incremental sales to a recommendation.
Consulting a tool does not reserve a sale for the brand
Earlier GWI context, published through Statista, records monthly search-engine use among 87.4% of Spanish internet users aged 16 to 64 and ChatGPT use among 30.5% in the second quarter of 2025. This measures information-tool use rather than assisted shopping. Differences in age, period and question prevent treating it as a time comparison with IAB’s 2026 study.
Spain: search and ChatGPT coexist as information tools
Monthly use among internet users aged 16 to 64. Second quarter of 2025; this is not a shopping question.
Tap or hover for details. All values are also available in the data table.
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GWI / DataReportal, published through Statista. Online panel; sample size is not published in the statistic’s details. Overlapping uses. These are not shares of queries, purchases or brand referrals, nor a trend against IAB 2026, which has a different population and question.
Explore the data table
| Category | Monthly use |
|---|---|
| Search engines | 87.4% |
| ChatGPT | 30.5% |
Coexistence matters commercially because somebody can move from assisted comparison to a search engine and then to the brand’s own listing. A favourable mention faces those checks. The brand incurs a cost if each step presents a different price, variant or condition: the buyer investigates again and the commercial team has to explain the contradiction.
The offer needs an identity that survives comparison
The Merchant Center product specification provides a concrete example of structured commercial information: it identifies products and variants and separates description, price and availability. This is a specification for Google’s stated surfaces rather than a universal contract for every assistant. Its analytical relevance is maintaining the same offer between catalogue and destination page.
A detail that changes the decision deserves priority. Size, compatibility or an excluded feature are not descriptive decoration. They establish whether the compared proposition exists under the buyer’s conditions. If a recommendation combines advantages from different versions, persuasive wording does not fix the problem: the business needs to clarify what is actually purchasable.
Google’s price guidance also keeps the submitted amount tied to the product and destination. Updating only final payment can leave an expired promotion in another public representation. Checking the price then becomes more work for the buyer, even when payment processing functions correctly.
Trust does not follow automatically from consultation frequency
AIMC’s online Navegantes en la Red survey, reported by Statista for October to December 2024, asked respondents who had heard of AI about expected change and ethical use. In that subgroup, 74.5% strongly or fairly agreed that AI would change the world; the same degree of agreement about trusting companies to use it ethically reached 32.6%, and about trusting people generally, 29.8%.
AIMC 2024: expected change and ethical trust are different responses
Participants who had heard of AI. Spain, Oct. 15 to Dec. 9, 2024.
Tap or hover for details. All values are also available in the data table.
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AIMC / Statista. The question concerns the subgroup who had heard of AI; its exact size is not published. The complete study has 14,735 useful responses from internet users aged 14 or over. Online questionnaire weighted to EGM; respondents are more active online than the general internet population. One agreement category is preserved without normalising others. This does not measure product customers, autonomous shopping or commercial outcomes.
Explore the data table
| Category | Strongly or fairly agree |
|---|---|
| AI will change the world in the coming years | 74.5% |
| I trust companies to use it ethically | 32.6% |
| I trust people to use it ethically | 29.8% |
This antecedent places two different objects side by side without merging surveys or assigning a cause to refusal of autonomous shopping. Somebody can expect substantial transformation while reserving trust for a particular action. Preserving review of the product, cost and conditions lets the brand serve a buyer seeking assistance without assuming authority that was never granted.
Commercial continuation is decided after the answer
Marketing can identify comparison questions; product teams can maintain specifications; commercial operations can confirm conditions. An updated fact needs to reach its public representations. Adding content before resolving a discrepancy expands the possible entry points into the same problem. Useful spending keeps the offer verifiable when the customer leaves the tool.
Measurement needs to distinguish an observed mention, a visit, an enquiry and a transaction. A customer’s account of discovering the product provides context rather than exact causal attribution. An origin label can also be absent when somebody opens the website separately. Reporting preserves those differences instead of presenting every related purchase as revenue produced by the assistant.
IAB and Elogia’s finding makes a familiar commercial task more valuable: letting the buyer confirm what they are accepting without repeating the comparison. The next investment is justified by information that resolves that check and by subsequent decisions the business documents. Winning a mention loses value when it leads to an offer the brand cannot explain consistently itself.
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Marian Vasile
Marian Vasile is a MarTech and growth professional. His work spans product marketing, SEO, paid advertising and deep online tracking, including behavioral analytics and attribution.