Global Consumers Have Moved On. Has Your Growth Strategy Caught Up?

Growth has always depended on understanding consumer demand, but the preferences of today’s consumers are changing faster than most growth strategies can adapt. As consumers redefine what they value, who they trust, and how they make purchase decisions, many assumptions that have guided consumer strategy for decades are no longer relevant. Too many brands continue to compete for consumers that have already moved on—chasing price when value matters more, buying attention rather than earning trust, and overlooking the growing role of AI in purchase decisions. To better anticipate the next wave of consumer-led growth, we surveyed more than 13,000 consumers across 12 markets to examine how their motivations, priorities, and decision-making patterns are changing. Then we analyzed more than 1,000 brands to validate our findings. (See the sidebar “About Our Research.”)

Our research revealed five enduring, consumer-led themes:

• Value Over Price. Price pressure dominates the headlines, but perceived value consistently serves as a stronger predictor of purchase than affordability does. In our survey, 67% of consumers said they would not buy a product, even when they could afford it, if they did not perceive strong value. Although price determines whether a product receives consideration at all, consumers ultimately buy based on value, which they determine on the basis of factors that go well beyond price.
• The Longevity Mindset. Three-quarters of consumers cited health and well-being as the number one marker of a prosperous life, ahead of career and financial wealth. Already embraced by one-third of consumers, the pursuit of longevity is driving spending across categories as consumers invest more in healthier and more fulfilling lives.
• The Rise of Solo Living. One in three households in mature markets today consists of a single person, up 6 percentage points from the 2010 figure and growing. Increasingly, solo living represents a confident lifestyle choice, reflecting a growing preference for independence, flexibility, and control.
• The New Trust Compass. In our survey, 43% of consumers said that they feel mentally overwhelmed by information overload, making trust an increasingly scarce asset. In response, they are concentrating their trust on experts, friends and family, and, most surprisingly, AI tools (the fastest-growing source of trusted information). Notably, brands do not control any of these trusted sources.
• The Age of AI-Driven Decisions. Overall, 31% of surveyed consumers already use AI at least occasionally in their purchase journeys, 19% are AI loyalists who rely on it regularly, and 70% of these loyalists ultimately buy the products that AI recommends. AI has thus become the secret driver of choice in many consumer journeys—and many brands have not planned for it.

Although these themes are already playing out today, most brands do not yet fully recognize and understand them. Some themes are advancing more quickly than others, but all are growing more pronounced and will become increasingly mainstream as enduring demographic shifts continue to unfold.

We use the term themes here because these are not trends in the conventional sense. Trends tend to be category-specific, cyclical, short-lived, or driven by products and marketing. In contrast, the themes identified in our research are global, enduring, and driven by the consumer rather than by the brands they patronize. The themes reflect changes in how people live rather than simply in what they buy, and they reinforce one another in ways that reshape demand across multiple categories simultaneously.

More importantly, these five themes should fundamentally affect consumer companies’ growth agendas. Underpinning the themes are long-term demographic, technological, and societal shifts, including longer life spans, changing life milestones, and AI-driven decision making, all of which will further strengthen them over time. Companies that recognize these shifts early will be better equipped to identify where demand is headed and where the next generation of growth will emerge.

Five Themes Defining Consumer Growth

BCG research revealed five interconnected themes that are already creating a new consumer reality. These themes powerfully influence what consumers want, how they live, and how they make purchase decisions. (To understand why these changes are occurring, and why they will endure, see the sidebar “The Context Surrounding the Consumer.”)

Value Is the Currency—Price Is Just the Entry Ticket

Throughout BCG's consumer research since 2022, perceived value has consistently proved to be a stronger predictor of purchase than affordability, ranking as a top five consumer need in half of all cases studied, and outscoring price in every one of them. Nearly 70% of consumers in our survey said that they would not purchase a product even when they could afford it if they did not perceive strong value. Our data bears this out: spending intentions correlate strongly with perceived value, but not with affordability.

This finding reflects a fundamental shift in understanding how consumers make decisions and, consequently, in how brands need to compete. Price still matters, but its role has changed. Our research suggests that consumers make two distinct judgments in evaluating products. Price determines whether a product enters the consideration set; but once that threshold is met, the basis for the ultimate decision quickly shifts to value. At that point, the relevant question is no longer "Can I can afford this?" but "Is this worth paying for?" Although not every purchase follows the same path—impulse buys and AI-enabled recommendations can dramatically compress the journey—the underlying value judgment remains firm. The choice that a consumer makes depends on factors that extend well beyond price.

Quality is the single most important driver of value satisfaction, and it has become a baseline expectation. Beyond quality, consumers evaluate value through multiple category-specific factors, including price and promotions, personal connection, volume, service, and convenience. (See Exhibit 1.) The significance of convenience has grown as consumers increasingly factor the time required to make a purchase and the effort required after purchase into their assessment of value.

Consumers have been signaling their interest in value for some time now, yet only 14% of the 1,000+ brands we analyzed consistently win on value. Competitive pricing matters, but winning brands also deliver on product features, convenience, quality, and trust.

Many organizations have yet to deliver on the dimensions of value that consumers care about most. For example, service and convenience are key drivers of value in auto, yet only 5% of brands stand out for their service quality. Similarly, in packaged snacks, where quantity is a critical component of value, only 6% of brands are perceived to deliver the right amount for survey respondents’ needs. Companies that identify and excel on those category and occasion-specific drivers can unlock a major growth opportunity.

Longevity and Well-Being Are Core Life Ambitions

Nearly three-quarters of consumers in our survey ranked health and well-being as the strongest indicator of prosperity, ahead of career (40%) and financial wealth (28%). Within health and well-being, healthy aging has emerged as one a high priorities for consumers, reinforcing consumers’ focus on living longer and better.

To understand how this theme is changing consumer behavior, we identified a group that we refer to as longevity seekers—consumers who prioritize healthy aging as a core component of their health and well-being. This cohort already represents nearly four in ten consumers today, and it has grown by 4 percentage points over the past year. Its importance is likely to increase further as populations age and affluence rises, particularly across Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) economies, given that longevity seekers are disproportionately affluent and drawn from Gen X or Baby Boomers.

Consumers who prioritize longevity behave differently across multiple health and wellness categories. They invest more in nutrition, fitness, beauty, preventive health care, financial planning, and mental well-being, and they resist behaviors that they associate with poorer long-term health. (See Exhibit 2.) They reject unhealthy habits such as fast food, binge eating, and alcohol and tobacco use twice as forcefully as they adopt good habits. Their defining behavior is avoidance, a shift that many incumbent brands failed to see coming.

The rapid adoption of GLP-1 therapies illustrates how quickly consumer behavior can spill across categories. In the US, the number of GLP-1 users has grown more than eightfold since 2020 to an estimated 16 million people and is projected to double again by 2030. The impact of such use goes beyond active users to include the household. Adoption has accelerated similarly in Europe, with roughly 9 million users today and an expected total in excess of 20 million by 2030. Yet many brands are only beginning to understand how deeply GLP-1 therapies affect consumers' lifestyles. Although they originated in health care, GLP-1s have changed demand for food, beverages, apparel, beauty, and fitness. The greatest growth opportunities for consumer companies are a function of understanding the broader outcomes that consumers seek and designing products, services, and experiences that support those outcomes across categories.

Living Alone Is a Choice—and a Statement

Today, 30% of households in mature markets consist of a single person—an increase of 6 percentage points since 2010—and the trend is accelerating, especially in developed markets. Around 40% of households in Germany, Sweden, France, and Italy are solo, and the numbers for Japan and South Korea are approaching similar levels.

Consumers overwhelmingly describe solo living positively, associating it with control, peace, and independence. (See Exhibit 3.)

Solo living has been increasing for decades, yet most businesses continue to design products, services, and experiences primarily for multiperson households. Solo households spend two to three times more per capita than multiperson households do, yet 50% to 70% of solo householders in our survey told us that products and services are not designed for people like them. For solo consumers, quality, appropriate package sizes, and reliable availability matter more than promotions and bulk discounts because buying in volume often creates waste rather than savings. Brands that continue to compete primarily on price are speaking the wrong language to one of their highest-spending consumer groups.

The missed opportunity extends beyond products. The purchase journeys of solo consumers are more compressed than those of multiperson households, with roughly 30% fewer touchpoints, and this contributes to stronger brand loyalty. Solo households also tend to do more offline shopping, not because they prefer physical retail, but because many digital experiences are structured for family households. Minimum delivery thresholds, deliveries and returns that require someone to be at home, bulk package sizes, and “buy two, get one free” promotions that cater to larger households create friction for consumers who are buying for one. In many categories, online commerce has not been designed with solo living in mind. (See Exhibit 4.)

The solo household is emerging as one of the largest and most underserved sources of future growth. As solo households proliferate, potentially exceeding 45% of households in Japan and Germany by 2050, the implications will extend beyond traditional consumer goods. Categories whose offerings mainly serve shared households, such as life and health insurance, pension products, home ownership, and automotive, will need to rethink their propositions. At the same time, sectors that support everyday independent living—from food and beverage, restaurants, and hospitality to pet care and household services—have an opportunity to redesign products, formats, and experiences to serve the needs of one-person households.

Consumers Are Building a New Trust Compass with AI

About 43% of consumers in our survey reported feeling mentally overwhelmed by the volume of information that they encounter, and more than half said that they do not fully trust any source of information. (See Exhibit 5.) Consumers are simplifying decision making by concentrating their trust in fewer sources—primarily expert advice, friends and family, and AI tools. (See Exhibit 6.)

AI has quickly become a relatively highly trusted source by providing personalized, direct, and transparent recommendations that help consumers navigate an increasingly cluttered marketplace. AI tools are also gaining trust faster than other sources: 30% of survey respondents completely trust them now, and an additional 15% expect to do so by 2030. Although AI's influence continues to grow rapidly, 60% of consumers still limit the amount of personal or sensitive information they share with AI tools, suggesting that trust remains conditional and could prove difficult to sustain without scrupulous transparency and responsible use. For now, however, AI's influence over consumer decision making continues to expand at remarkable speed.

The implications for brands are far-reaching. Most organizations have little visibility into how AI recommends, ranks, or filters their products. As a result, it is one of the most influential and least understood factors affecting consumer purchase decisions.

Quality, authenticity, and transparency can be earned, and all of them have become stronger signals of trust than brand awareness alone. The specific drivers of trust, however, vary by product category. (See Exhibit 7.)

In this environment, companies should view trust as a strategic capability that they can build through operational performance, transparency, and consistent delivery on the brand promise. The brands that earn trust will be best positioned to capture long-term growth.

AI Is Becoming a Powerful Voice in Consumer Choice

AI is one of the fastest-moving forces now influencing consumer behavior. Nearly one-third of consumers in our survey said that they have used AI at some point in their purchase journeys, roughly triple the level reported just 18 months ago. Adoption is highest among many of the consumers that brands are most eager to reach, including consumers in developing markets (50%), higher-income households (43%), and Gen Z and Millennials (42%). As AI-native generations claim a larger share of the consumer base, AI's influence is likely to become increasingly mainstream, and, in many cases, a primary influencer in purchase decisions.

Approximately 20% of surveyed consumers said that they now rely on AI regularly when making purchase decisions, while 13% already purchase whatever AI recommends. (See Exhibit 8.) The change is particularly pronounced in developing markets, where 50% of consumers use AI in their purchase journeys, 36% rely on it regularly, and 26% buy on the basis of its recommendations, compared with 26%, 14%, and 10%, respectively, in developed markets.

The emergence of AI as a major influence on consumer buying behavior will fundamentally change how companies compete. Historically, brands invested heavily to build awareness and persuade consumers to consider their products. But now, increasingly, AI assembles that shortlist on the consumer's behalf. Our research indicates that AI introduces consumers to brands that they would not otherwise have considered in roughly 63% of AI-assisted purchase journeys. (See Exhibit 9.) At the same time, AI bolsters the perceived value of the brands it recommends by providing consumers with a rationale and a fit assessment that traditional advertising rarely equals. For incumbents, the greatest threat is therefore a recommendation that they never saw coming; and for challengers, the greatest opportunity is the same. (See Exhibit 10.)

Today's AI-assisted recommendations represent only the first stage of a broader transition. As consumer trust grows and AI capabilities mature, shopping is likely to evolve from AI-assisted discovery to AI-enabled transactions and, in some cases, to autonomous purchasing agents that act on consumers' behalf. Increasingly, the brands that win will be the ones that AI determines are most relevant.

Perhaps the most important implication of these five themes is that companies cannot understand or act on them in isolation. Although companies have traditionally viewed consumers through the lens of products, categories, and segments, consumers do not experience the market that way. They make decisions across interconnected aspects of their lives, which means that changes in one domain influence behavior in many others. The challenge for companies is therefore to understand the broader consumer context and how it will drive future growth.

These themes will become more influential over time. People are living longer and delaying traditional life milestones. In the OECD countries covered in this study, solo households have increased from 29% of all households in 2010 to 35% today. AI usage more than doubled in the past year, with one leading platform growing from 350 million to 900 million monthly active users in just 13 months.

Some of these themes are early signals, but others have been building for years. Across each theme, businesses have been slow to recognize changing consumer needs and slower still to redesign products, services, and experiences accordingly, leaving substantial growth opportunities untapped.

Six Imperatives to Capture the Next Wave of Growth

Winning future consumers will require companies to rethink how they compete and where the next source of growth will emerge. The following imperatives provide a blueprint for building a growth advantage.

Compete on Value, Not Price

Price determines whether a product enters consumers’ consideration, but value determines whether consumers buy. The critical question is whether a company’s value proposition delivers the combination of quality, convenience, trust, emotional relevance, and other attributes that matter most in its category and at the moments of demand that ultimately drive consumer choice. Winning on value requires a cross-functional ability to deliver it consistently across the customer experience, from product and pricing to availability, service, and postpurchase support.

Question for leadership: Which dimensions of value—not price—drive purchases in your category for your specific consumers and occasions?

Build Around Tomorrow's Growth Segments

As highlighted in our earlier discussion of the five themes, solo households, longevity seekers, and AI native consumers are examples of tomorrow’s growth segments. Traditional demographic segments are becoming weaker predictors of demand. The most important drivers of future growth cut across age, income, and geography. Themes such as longevity seeking, solo living, and AI-guided decision making are already driving changes in spending throughout the consumer economy, yet many portfolios remain optimized for consumers that are becoming less representative of future demand.

Question for leadership: Is your growth strategy aligned with where demand is moving or where it has historically been?

Earn Trust Through Evidence

Consumers no longer make decisions alone, and the channels they trust cannot be bought. Increasingly, consumers validate brand claims through experts, peers, and AI. Trust has become an operational capability built through transparency, product quality, and evidence that consumers and AI can independently verify.

Question for leadership: Can consumers and AI independently verify the reasons to choose your brand?

Prepare for a World of AI-Native Commerce

More and more, AI is assembling the consideration set before consumers ever reach a brand's channels. As zero-click purchase journeys become more common, organizations need to understand whether AI recommends their brand, to whom, when, and why—and the value proposition that it presents on their behalf. They must encode clear brand guardrails into their agentic marketing stack to ensure that AI represents the brand consistently and as intended. Brands that have not audited their AI presence may find themselves excluded from consideration before a consumer’s purchase journey has even begun.

Question for leadership: If AI were your most important sales channel, would you know how your brand is performing today?

Modernize Your Consumer Insights

The key challenge in the current retail landscape is to identify the consumer insights that matter and to elevate them to inform enterprise decision making. Longevity seeking, solo households, and sources of trust are evolving faster than traditional research approaches can explain. To keep up, organizations need capabilities that distinguish enduring shifts in consumer interest from short-term noise, identify the true drivers of demand, and explain how these drivers influence consumer decisions across touchpoints. To translate insights into action, companies need strategic foresight, continuous market intelligence, and rapid testing to work together.

Question for leadership: Does your insight capability anticipate future demand and track real-time changes, or does it primarily explain past behavior?

Build Commercial Capabilities for the Changing Consumer

Winning future consumers requires having commercial capabilities that evolve as quickly as consumers do. Revenue growth management should recognize that value, rather than just price, increasingly drives purchase decisions. To earn trust, marketing must ensure consistent delivery of the brand promise, not simply amplification of it through paid reach. Companies should construct innovation pipelines in growth areas that will drive demand in the years ahead. Across these capabilities, organizations should ensure that they invest every commercial dollar where it will generate the greatest impact and that they measure the returns on those investments rigorously.

Question for leadership: Are your commercial capabilities evolving as quickly as your consumers are?

The assumptions that have guided consumer strategy for decades are becoming less reliable predictors of future growth. Consumers are rethinking what constitutes value, redefining what a successful life looks like, placing trust in different sources, and increasingly relying on AI. These structural shifts are creating new patterns of demand across categories.

For consumer companies, the growth imperative is to anticipate where demand is heading and build for it. The organizations that grow fastest will recognize these shifts before their competitors and translate them into new offerings, experiences, operating models, and commercial capabilities.

The authors thank Flavia Gemignani, Mitesh Goradia, Isha Chawla, Aakansha Mittal, Sidhanth Shah, Shikhar Agarwal, and Sarah Kim for their contributions.