The challenge

Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing how consumers discover products, compare brands, and make purchase decisions.  

For home improvement retailers, this shift presents a significant challenge: how do you identify changing customer behaviors before they begin impacting market share? 

While web analytics, sales data, and customer feedback provide valuable hindsight, they often fail to reveal emerging behaviors until they are already influencing purchase outcomes. 

One national home improvement retailer wanted to understand: 

• Whether consumers were using AI tools during the shopping process
• Which stages of the purchase journey were being impacted
• How AI usage differed across customer segments
• Which competitors stood to gain the greatest advantage
• What actions would help the retailer remain relevant as shopping behaviors evolved

The retailer partnered with NPS Prism and Dynata to uncover emerging behavior patterns and inform strategic planning.  

Dynata surveyed nearly 3,000 U.S. consumers who planned DIY home improvement projects 

The approach 

Using Dynata’s verified first-party consumer panel and NPS Prism’s continuous benchmarking capabilities, the team designed a research program focused on understanding AI adoption across the home improvement shopping journey to better understand how consumers plan projects from exploration to budgeting.  How brands are selected, as well as purchase validation.   

The analysis combined journey-stage insights with competitive benchmarking to identify where AI was creating new opportunities and risks. 

What they discovered

AI is influencing the journey earlier than expected 

The research found that AI is becoming a meaningful part of the inspiration and research process. 

Consumers increasingly turn to AI-powered tools at the beginning of projects to gather information, evaluate options, and understand potential approaches before engaging directly with retailers. 

For the retailer, this represented a shift in where customer influence begins. 

Instead of relying solely on search engines, websites, and store visits, shoppers were increasingly seeking recommendations from AI platforms before entering traditional retail channels. 

Customer expectations are changing 

AI users demonstrated higher expectations for: 

• Personalized recommendations 
• Faster answers 
• Product comparisons 
• Guided decision-making 

These consumers expected retailers to deliver experiences that felt more consultative and tailored to their specific project needs. 

The findings suggested that future competitive advantage would be determined not only by product assortment and pricing, but also by the quality of guidance retailers provide throughout the decision process. 

Emerging behavior varied by customer segment 

Not all customers were adopting AI in the same way. 

The study revealed distinct patterns among: 

• DIY homeowners 
• First-time project buyers 
• Professional contractors 
• High-value project shoppers 

Understanding these differences allowed the retailer to prioritize investments toward the audiences most likely to be influenced by AI-driven discovery and decision-making. 

The impact

Armed with actionable consumer intelligence, the retailer was able to: 

Identify emerging behavior before competitors 

Rather than waiting for changes to appear in transactional data, leaders gained an early view of shifting purchase journeys. 

Inform customer experience planning 

The findings helped shape future investments in digital experiences, customer support, and personalized guidance. 

Prioritize strategic initiatives 

The retailer identified the customer segments and journey stages most likely to be affected by AI adoption and focused resources accordingly. 

Build a future-ready strategy 

Most importantly, leadership gained confidence that strategic decisions were grounded in verified human perspectives rather than assumptions about technological change. 

Why Dynata and NPS Prism 

Traditional customer data explains what happened. 

Verified human signal helps organizations understand why it’s happening and what’s likely to happen next. 

By combining: 

• Verified first-party consumer data from Dynata 
• Continuous benchmarking from NPS Prism 
• Fast-turn custom research 
• Deep customer journey intelligence 

organizations can identify emerging market shifts earlier and make more confident strategic decisions.