Bar Maimon, AI Growth Hacker, Founder, and CEO at IceWeb.
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Over 70% of consumers use AI to find shopping deals, and over 60% use it for product and service recommendations, signaling a major shift in how people discover products. That trend runs counter to general AI skepticism, with over 85% of people trusting AI product recommendations. Brands that ignore this are leaving money on the table.
How can a brand use these emergent trends to increase their sales and market share? To answer that, we should start with another question: What are consumers searching for?
The first prompt a shopper enters into an AI assistant often shapes the rest of the purchase journey. It reveals what they value, how far along they are in the buying process and what kind of recommendation they want. Unlike traditional search, where people often typed a string of keywords, AI invites them to ask direct questions in natural language.
So what do those first questions usually sound like? While no single universal database exists for all consumer AI prompts, research on search intent from Semrush and commercial query behavior from Ahrefs suggests most recommendation prompts fall into a few familiar patterns.
A Wise Sage
Shoppers aren’t approaching AI like a search engine but as an all-knowing guide. First prompts usually do one of five things: ask for the best option, describe a specific need, set a budget, compare two or more choices or seek reassurance before buying for themselves or others.
1. The Broad Category Prompt: ‘What’s the best …?’
One of the most common ways shoppers begin is with a broad question: “What are the best running shoes for beginners?”
This is classic top-of-funnel behavior. The shopper knows the category but not the short list, and they want AI to narrow the field.
This mirrors how people have long searched online. “Best” queries are a high-intent commercial pattern, and AI simply makes those queries more conversational. Instead of clicking through multiple review sites, shoppers can ask one question and get a synthesized starting point.
2. The Use-Case Prompt: ‘What should I buy for my specific need?’
Many consumers don’t ask for the “best” product in general. They ask for the best product for a specific situation: “What’s a good vacuum for pet hair?”
These prompts focus on outcomes, not products. Consumers are not looking for a vacuum; they are looking for a cleaner home with less hassle.
That aligns closely with broader user-behavior research from the Nielsen Norman Group, which shows that people prefer systems that help them complete tasks and solve problems, not just retrieve information. AI fits naturally into that behavior because it can interpret context and needs more effectively than a traditional keyword search box.
3. The Budget Prompt: ‘What’s the best option under $X?’
Price is one of the strongest filters in commerce, so budget-based prompts are another common starting point, with queries such as “best headphones under $200.”
These prompts signal a serious shopper. They are not browsing; they are already setting purchase boundaries. Budget prompts work best when paired with a need, such as “best laptop under $800 for a design student.”
The more constraints a consumer gives, the more helpful AI becomes.
4. The Comparison Prompt: ‘Which is better, X or Y?’
As shoppers move further down the funnel, prompts often become more specific: “Is the Kindle Paperwhite worth it over the basic Kindle?”
This behavior lines up with Google’s concept of the “messy middle“—the stage where buyers loop through exploration and evaluation before deciding.
In this context, AI acts less like a search tool and more like an advisor that clarifies trade-offs such as quality, features, durability, ease of use, etc.
5. The Audience-Specific Prompt: ‘What’s best for someone like me?’
Another common opening is a request tailored to identity, experience level or life stage, like “best gifts for a new mom.”
These prompts reflect the growing expectation that recommendations should feel personal. Consumers don’t just want “good products”; they also want products that fit their lifestyle, age, family situation or expertise level.
6. The Validation Prompt: ‘Is it worth it?’
Sometimes the first AI prompt is not really about discovery at all. It is about risk reduction: “Is premium dog food really better?”
These prompts come from skeptical but interested consumers. They may already know the product exists. They may have seen ads, read reviews or heard recommendations from friends. What they want now is validation.
AI makes it easy to ask, “Am I making a smart choice?”
7. The Gift Prompt: ‘What should I buy for someone else?’
Gift shopping is another natural fit for AI recommendations: “What should I get my wife for our anniversary?”
Buying a gift combines uncertainty, time pressure and social stakes. Shoppers often know the recipient better than they know the product landscape. Consumers think hard about finding the “right” gift, not just any gift, and AI can help bridge that gap quickly.
What Brands Can Do
Taken together, the above suggest consumers are increasingly starting their shopping journeys with AI. Accordingly, brands need to look beyond traditional SEO. They should create content that answers recommendation-style questions clearly and in plain language.
That means explaining who the product is for, what problems it solves, what budget range it fits, how it compares to alternatives and why it is worth buying.
A product page full of specs may still be useful, but a page that also describes a product as “best for small apartments,” “great for pet owners” or “ideal under $300” is better positioned for AI-assisted shopping.
An AI Solution For A Very Human Problem
The first prompts consumers use for AI product recommendations are not especially technical. In fact, they are remarkably human. People ask what is best, what fits their budget and what solves their problem.
The big lesson is that shoppers don’t just want products; they also want guidance. And increasingly, they are turning to AI to get it. Brands that create content that answers this shift can see a dramatic increase in their sales.
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