Swiss shoppers trust chatbots. Should they?

As generative AI evolves into a commercial platform that can influence buying decisions like never before, businesses in Switzerland and around the world are racing to appear in chatbot responses. But can consumers trust the results? In the past, choosing a hotel, an insurance policy or a new smartphone meant comparing dozens of results on Google. Today, more and more people – including many in Switzerland – turn to chatbots such as ChatGPT. New research shows artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots can influence what people buy nearly three times more effectively than search engines like Google. The reason is simple: AI models do more than search for information. They analyse options, summarise reviews and produce personalised recommendations. “They save us a lot of time and help simplify things,” explains Felix Schakols, a marketing researcher at the University of St Gallen. Insurance policies are a perfect example – a product that is particularly important for many Swiss ...