Romina Mueller.
Dr Romina Mueller - Director at Tgarage Strategy & Insights
We like to think we know when someone is using AI, but the lines are already blurred. When tools like Outlook, Google Search, or even Instagram filters quietly embed AI, what counts as “using AI” at all?
Shortcuts for everyday decisions
In our June 2025 data, 53% of Australians say they have used tools like ChatGPT, and almost half of these early adopters use them weekly or more. Already, three-in-ten have turned to AI for product searches, review comparisons, or shopping list creation and established new shortcuts to ease the effort of everyday decisions.
At the same time, consumers are carrying unprecedented fatigue. After five years of crisis - from the pandemic to ongoing cost-of-living stress - Australians are mentally overloaded. Our tracker shows 52% remain concerned about rising costs, 55% say they are financially struggling, and 29% report being in a declining emotional state.
System 1, System 2, and the AI co-pilot
This is where psychology helps us decode behaviour. As Daniel Kahneman notes, stress reduces reliance on slower, rational “System 2” thinking and pushes us toward faster, more intuitive “System 1” shortcuts. In this context, AI is not just a shiny new tool. It becomes the cognitive co-pilot: offloading effort, summarising choices, and delivering the mental shortcuts consumers crave. Appetite is growing, with more than half of Australians (55%) saying they want greater AI support in shopping decisions, whether booking travel or planning the weekly grocery shop.
But how people feel about AI is just as important as how often they use it.
At Tgarage, we segmented 774 SaySo community members by hopefulness, happiness, financial stability, and cost-of-living concerns. Survival Strugglers are the least hopeful and most impacted, followed by Hopeful Strugglers. In contrast, Thriving Navigators are the most financially secure, positive, and resilient.
While AI adoption rates look similar across all groups, sentiment differs. Those under strain often feel most threatened by AI, while more secure groups are more optimistic and open to AI – see chart below:
Why this shift matters
Consumers are already co-creating their responses with AI, often without disclosure. That means marketers are not just facing messy datasets, but they are facing a bigger challenge: insight frameworks that no longer match reality. Without adapting, the gap between consumer behaviour and brand understanding will only grow.
So, the real question becomes: if AI is co-authoring the consumer voice, how do we respond differently? You are no longer speaking to simple demographics; you are engaging with shifting cognitive states, shaped by how consumers feel about and use AI.
So, how can we respond differently?
- Rebuild data trust
AI-shaped responses are already in your research. Instead of ignoring them, design tools to detect synthetic language, ask “why” as well as “what,” and build frameworks that interpret context, not just content.
- Segment by mindset
AI adoption is flat across groups, but optimism, fear, and resistance divide how people feel. Hopeful vs. struggling consumers interpret AI differently. Segment by attitude to AI - trust, fear, curiosity, resistance - to avoid alienating some while engaging others.
3. Simplify the load
Consumers under strain are leaning on AI to reduce effort. Campaigns that feel too “bot-fluent” or add friction will miss the mark. Winning work is intuitive, light on mental load, and emotionally supportive.
- Protect human creativity
Consumers trust AI for rational, functional tasks like price comparisons, reviews, product specs. But they still want humans for culture, meaning, and imagination. Use AI to clear the clutter. Keep the story, the spark, and the empathy human.
The bottom line: AI now shapes the way consumers search, respond, and decide. For marketers, the challenge is not to strip AI out of the voice of the consumer, but to understand when decisions are fast and intuitive, when they’re slow and deliberate, and where only human imagination can inspire trust.