Americans say they’re uneasy about retailers using artificial intelligence to set prices. They are also turning to AI tools to find the lowest ones.

A December Talker Research survey found that 62% of U.S. adults are somewhat or very concerned about personalized pricing, according to EMARKETER. Trust in business overall is thin. Axios reported that just 27% of Americans trust companies to use AI responsibly, down from 31% a year earlier.

The unease has landed on the nation’s biggest retailers. Walmart said in March that 2,300 U.S. stores had digital shelf labels, with a chainwide rollout planned by next year. Retailers say the labels keep shelf and checkout prices matched and spare workers the chore of swapping paper tags by hand. Critics see a tool that could let stores change prices faster.

Walmart has pushed back. A company spokeswoman told the Financial Times, “We don’t participate in surge pricing,” and said newly patented tools are unrelated to dynamic pricing. Walmart executive Furner has pledged that its Sparky shopping assistant won’t use customer information to raise prices or hide cheaper options. McDonald’s has also defended its approach after a Reuters report on pricing technology, saying AI does not set its prices.

Government is stepping in anyway. Federal and state officials are moving to put guardrails on automated pricing, and some states have already passed laws targeting dynamic pricing. In Maryland, the state retailers alliance’s president said the group had no objection to that state’s law because the practice isn’t common in the industry. He said supply and demand, not individual shopper data, remains the biggest driver of prices.

Shoppers, meanwhile, are adopting the same technology on their own. A September survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers by Akeneo and Dynata found that 46% compare prices across multiple retailers before buying, and 24% already use AI tools such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini to compare prices or deals. Among those users, 56% trust the tools to give accurate pricing. Separate research cited by EMARKETER found nearly 30% of consumers think digital shelf labels or smart carts could make grocery shopping easier.

That leaves a fair question for lawmakers. If competition and comparison shopping already give consumers leverage, new rules for a practice retailers say they don’t use may solve a problem that hasn’t been shown to exist.

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