New SAP research finds artificial intelligence is reshaping how UK consumers discover and compare brands, but trust, experience and product quality still decide who keeps them

London, UK, 12 November 2026: For decades, brands competed for attention. AI is changing the game. Now they compete for recommendation.

New research from SAP Engagement Cloud’s Customer Loyalty Index finds that artificial intelligence is rapidly displacing traditional discovery — search, advertising, word of mouth as the mechanism through which consumers evaluate and shortlist brands. A third of UK consumers (33%) have already used AI to inform purchasing decisions. Twenty-six per cent have bought a product an AI assistant recommended outright. Nearly a quarter (23%) now trust AI recommendations more than advice from friends and family.

This is not incremental change. It represents a structural shift in how brands get chosen and a new form of competition most organisations have not yet designed for. When AI evaluates a brand, it does not see the advertising. It evaluates the substance: product quality, reliability, service record. The shortlist is being drawn up before a brand’s marketing has had a single conversation with the customer.

What earns a place on that shortlist and what earns loyalty, however, are two different things. Almost two thirds of UK consumers (63%) say they are more loyal to brands that make them feel personally valued. More than half (53%) cite product quality as a primary driver. Nearly seven in ten (69%) say they have a favourite brand they love and trust. The fundamentals of loyalty have not changed. AI has created a faster, more unforgiving route to the moment where they are tested.

When brands are tested and fail, customers leave and they leave fast. Nearly half (47%) have already switched from a brand they were previously loyal to following a poor customer experience. In a world where AI has made comparison instant and friction-free, the cost of that failure compounds. Every poor experience is one more data point in the system evaluating your brand on behalf of the next customer.

“AI may be very good at putting a brand on the shortlist, but marketers should not confuse visibility with loyalty,” said marketing expert Mark Ritson. “It can’t compensate for a poor product, weak value or a bad customer experience. Those fundamentals still determine whether someone comes back.”

This tension between AI-driven discovery and enduring human loyalty took centre stage at B2B WorldFest this week, where Mark Ritson and fellow marketing heavyweight Tom Goodwin debated whether AI is fundamentally changing customer behaviour or simply changing the infrastructure through which that behaviour plays out.

Sara Richter, CMO of SAP Engagement Cloud, sees the distinction as commercially critical. “AI isn’t just changing how businesses sell. It’s changing how businesses get chosen and how fast they can lose what they’ve built. Customers judge brands through the everyday moments that follow discovery: is the product actually in stock? Does the offer reflect what this customer cares about? If something goes wrong, can customer service see what has already happened and put it right?

“Connecting customer insight with operational data helps businesses join those moments together and act quickly when the experience falls short. Getting onto the AI shortlist is the beginning, not the prize. Loyalty is built or lost in everything that comes after.”

For further loyalty insights download the SAP Customer Loyalty Index 2026.