Black Friday and Cyber Monday run on customer data to inform personalized offers, loyalty programs, and AI-driven recommendations. Consumers are watching how retailers handle it, and some are choosing to walk away.
The findings come from the State of Digital Trust 2026 Report, the second annual study commissioned by Usercentrics, a leading data privacy technology company, and conducted by Sapio Research with 11,000 consumers across seven markets. In the report’s retail data, findings show that 19% of UK consumers have stopped using a retail brand because of concerns about its data privacy practices.
Retail starts from a position of relative trust, but it’s conditional:
- 20% of UK consumers rank retail among their three most trusted sectors for handling personal data.
- Among UK consumers who trust retail, 19% say transparency about data collection and use is their most important trust factor.
- Just 13% of UK consumers in that group rank regulatory compliance as their top trust factor.
Personalisation is central to holiday retail, but consumers remain uneasy about it. Across the full study, 71% of consumers are concerned that AI-driven personalisation feels intrusive. Usercentrics’ research highlights this tension, finding that 16% of consumers globally grant AI access despite feeling uncomfortable, compared with just 7% who are fully comfortable doing so without conditions. In the UK, 11% of consumers grant AI access despite feeling uncomfortable.
Among privacy-aware consumers globally, those who read cookie banners and understand their data rights, 53% are comfortable with companies using their data to personalise their experience. Among privacy-unaware consumers, the figure is 19%.
Willingness to pay for that clarity runs highest among younger shoppers: 67% of 18- to 29-year-olds would pay more, against 23% of consumers aged 60 and above.
Across the full study, almost half (47%) of consumers surveyed have taken at least one action with a direct revenue consequence in the past six months because of concerns about how their data was used in AI. They canceled a subscription, switched to a competitor, or reduced their spending.
On the other side of the ledger, 52% of consumers globally would pay more for brands that are transparent about how they use AI with their data, at an average 7% premium.
“Black Friday and Cyber Monday is when brands lean hardest on customer data, and consumers are paying close attention to how it’s used,” said Tilman Harmeling, Head of Strategy and Market Intelligence at Usercentrics. “They’ve told us what they do when they don’t like the answer. They are willing to cancel and switch brands if they feel their information is being misused. The brands that explain their data and AI practices in plain language are the ones consumers will pay extra for.”
Additional global key findings from the report include:
- 48% click “accept all” on cookies less often than three years ago, up from 46% in 2025. Only 23% click it more often.
- 46% still don’t have a good understanding of how their data is collected and used, identical to 2025.
- 60% are uncomfortable with their personal data being used to train AI models.
For retailers, fewer “accept all” clicks also means fewer consented signals reaching ad platforms during peak campaign weeks.
