00:00 Speaker A
one data point that immediately stands out. 97% of kids 7 to 14 say they decide what to buy. How big a change is that? I guess for companies and for brands if those are the folks in the house making the decisions.
00:19 Speaker B
Yeah, so so much of the narrative about Jen Alpha has been about screen time and distraction. But if we only focus there, we’re missing the fact that they are the most commercially fluent generation we have ever seen. They’re confident, they’re online all the time and it’s just part of their flow. And they often grew up during the pandemic. A lot of them were toddlers during the pandemic where they they gave them screens as a lifeline as a classroom, as a means of getting food to the house. So tapping a screen is as natural to them as anything else in their lives, as running water. So these kids are, you know, when they want something, they put it in the cart. The cart has really become the family group chat thing. They they are influencing billions in household spend.
01:05 Speaker A
24% of kids say they independently order an items online.
01:14 Speaker B
These kids are ordering food left and right. They’re using Grub Hub, they’re using, you know, Uber Eats and Door Dash. I mean, you name it, right? They’re they’re they’re ordering snacks and desserts, not even like full meals, okay? And parents, there was an 11 point difference in our survey between parents’s perception of their kids ordering food and beverage autonomously. And I think it’s like in the past, kids might raid the pantry when the parents aren’t home or make themselves, you know, a treat. Well, now if kids want something, they just order it for delivery.
01:46 Speaker C
to your point was that 38% of ages 13 to 14 use AI. How does that compare to to corporate America? Is this the next generation of AI? It’s the adoption’s really just beginning.
02:04 Speaker B
This is our first native AI generation. That stat rivals most employees in the workforce, in the modern workforce. About 40% of them are using AI for fun every day. We also know that age between ages 13 and 34, 60% are using AI recreationally at least every single day. So, this is a big deal. I mean, this is a totally new channel for discovering products and brands with agentic commerce, you can now click buy in Google Gemini for example. So, it’s really important for your brands and products to show up in these agentic channels which search very differently than the legacy search engines.
02:45 Speaker A
To your to that point, this was another interesting data point. 61% of Gen Alpha say social media influences what they buy. That was more than TV advertising or in-store browsing. So does that sort of change an impact? If I’m a brand, how I’m sort of deciding to put marketing dollars to work?
03:04 Speaker B
Yeah, well what’s also interesting is that parents’ perception is the inverse. Parents actually thought that kids are more influenced by their peers and their friends and social media was second and the kids said the opposite. Um, so yeah, I mean social commerce is really a big deal for kids and it needs to be frictionless. 52% of kids in our survey said that they stop using an app when it feels clunky or they get bored. So just the the user experience is equally as important as, you know, making sure you have social commerce built into your online applications.
03:36 Speaker C
What I also found interesting was that more than half have a wish list. They’ll create a wish list on PowerPoint presentations or they’ll do something else to sort of showcase to their parents. How integral is it for these companies to sort of lend the opportunity to to make that seamless in becoming part of wish lists?
03:59 Speaker B
Yeah, these kids, they’re they’re living online. So they’re incredibly technically savvy, they’re digitally native, they’re AI native. So they also are great negotiators and strategists. So what they’re doing is they’re using moments, holidays, birthdays, report card, good grades, and they’re creating Power points and mood boards and and sharing with their parents justification and literally like business cases for why they should buy them things. They’re developing brand loyalty well before they can drive.