AI Can Help You Shop. But Can You Trust It to Pay?
There is a quiet little moment in online shopping where everything changes.
It is not when you search.
It is not when you compare prices.
It is not when you scroll through reviews at midnight pretending you are “just checking”.
It is the checkout.
That is where convenience becomes commitment. That is where browsing turns into money leaving your account. And that is why today’s Number of the Day matters.
77% of South African consumers have already used AI tools to help them shop.
In this episode of Number of the Day, Gareth Edwards and Francis Herd unpack how AI is moving from novelty to normal behaviour. It is already helping people compare prices, check reviews and find gift ideas. According to Visa’s Stay Secure study, 77% of South African consumers have used AI tools to assist with shopping, while 92% say new technologies, including AI-powered tools, make online shopping faster and easier.
So the adoption story is no longer the surprising part.
The trust story is.
Because once AI moves from helping you choose to helping you pay, the mood changes quickly.
Francis explains the next stage as AI agents acting like personal shoppers. This is often called agentic commerce: a world where AI can act on behalf of a person or business to search, compare, negotiate or complete purchases.
That sounds efficient.
It also sounds like the beginning of a very South African side-eye.
Visa’s study found that only 23% of South African consumers would trust AI agents to complete checkout on their behalf.
That gap is the episode’s sharpest insight.
Consumers are not rejecting AI. They are drawing a boundary.
Help me compare prices? Fine.
Help me check reviews? Lovely.
Suggest a gift? Please, because some of us are fighting for our lives every birthday season.
But hold my card?
Now we need to talk.
Gareth and Francis also touch on a deeper consumer question. If an AI agent recommends a product, who is shaping that recommendation? The customer? The retailer? A platform? A brand with incentives behind the scenes?
That concern could become central as AI shopping grows. A personal shopper is only useful if it is genuinely acting in your interest.
The episode also widens the lens to children and online safety. Gaming, social commerce and mobile wallets are already mixing in ways that can catch families off
guard. Francis highlights the risk of children falling victim to scams while gaming or shopping online. The Visa study found that 52% of adults have seen a child fall victim to a scam in those environments, and 19% of South African parents have children who can access mobile payment apps or digital wallets.
That makes the 77% figure bigger than a tech trend.
It is a trust story.
It is a parenting story.
It is a retail story.
It is a payment-safety story.
AI is already helping South Africans shop.
The next question is whether we will ever trust it enough to press “pay”.
Catch up on all Number of the Day episodes here: https://www.enca.com/number-day-podcast