Abstract:

Conversational AI is increasingly embedded across retail search and purchase environments, functioning not only as a transactional interface but as a decision support infrastructure that accompanies consumers across multiple stages of the customer journey. While prior research has documented the technological capabilities and performance outcomes of chatbots and voice assistants, there remains limited synthesis of how conversational AI shapes consumer decision making across interconnected search, evaluation, and purchase stages, particularly in the context of generative AI. Existing reviews either predate the widespread adoption of large language model based systems or rely on search strategies that restrict cognition to isolated outcomes rather than dynamic decision processes.

This study addresses this gap through a bibliometric analysis of 421 peer reviewed articles published between 2017 and early 2026 and indexed in Scopus. Using Bibliometrix and Biblioshiny, the analysis maps publication trends, thematic clusters, and intellectual linkages within the conversational AI literature in retail and shopping contexts. The study examines how research themes have evolved over time, how they are structurally connected, and the extent to which they engage with search to purchase customer journeys and decision making processes.

Findings reveal a clear structural shift following 2023, with generative AI accelerating convergence around applied conversational interfaces. However, decision making does not persist as a core research theme. Instead, cognitive processes are largely absorbed into outcome oriented clusters focused on sales, user experience, and performance metrics. Journey level theorisation remains weak, with limited attention to sensemaking, trust formation, and cross channel movement across stages.

By synthesising the literature through a journey oriented and decision process focused lens, this study contributes a clarified positioning of generative conversational AI within omnichannel retail. It highlights structural gaps in existing research and outlines future directions that reorient analysis toward conversational AI mediated customer journeys, adaptive cognition, and process based decision making.

Please choose your submission type: Developmental Paper

Primary Track: Marketing and Retail

Keywords: Consumer behaviour and psychology;Retail;Marketing theory

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Dr. Anh Nguyen