The head of sales at Google Portugal, Joana Bastos dos Santos, told Lusa this Thursday, December 18th, that artificial intelligence (AI) is changing consumption patterns in the Portuguese market.
“Artificial intelligence is profoundly changing consumption patterns in Portugal”said Joana Bastos dos Santos, noting that currently people carry out research “two to three times longer” than in recent years and “more complex, in the form of questions, with different nuances that provide greater context about the consumer”.
According to the Consumer Google Survey study, carried out in November in Portugal, if previously people used Google mainly in the final stages of the purchasing process, they are now saying that Google is supporting the discovery and inspiration stage of this process.
“In the country, 76.2% use Google to search for products, services or to buy them online”according to the study.
According to the data, 40% use it to look for ideas about what to offer (inspiration), 31% to compare prices and product features, 29% to discover new products or brands and 19% to get reviews.
Multimodal search is also a trend in Portugal, with 44% of users reporting having searched by image in the last year and 23% by voice.
Therefore, “people have much more complex purchasing decision processes than they had before and it is very difficult manually or with traditional systems for a brand, for example, or a business, to be able to impact a really relevant consumer or a really relevant message, because, in fact, the purchasing decision process today is almost unique for each person”explained Joana Bastos dos Santos.
“Artificial intelligence has not only been changing information consumption patterns, it has also been bringing new answers, essentially, to reach consumers more easily”he added.
“I would say that 2025 was the most transformative year of my 18-year experience in this area”in terms of changes in consumption patterns and responses, technology, solutions to respond to these changes, considered the head of sales.
Currently, the main challenge for brands is “being able to identify a user at a critical moment in the purchasing decision process”.
Regarding the role of AI agents, Joana Bastos dos Santos considered it to be “the new frontier”.
“We are moving from a phase of automation to a phase of collaboration in which an agent may be an assistant, may not be, it is an assistant, in essence, that helps us in various areas of our lives and even in the purchase decision process it can complete a purchase for the consumer”he said.
According to the person responsible, AI agents are still “in a very embryonic phase”, and next year there will be more clarity on this topic.