LLMs have quickly become the starting point for almost everything — work, entertainment, shopping, health decisions, and more. Yet one important aspect is often ignored: how they wrap up their responses. In many cases, they don’t really “end” — and that’s significant. They behave with a kind of “no, you hang up first” mindset. Our prompts don’t simply conclude; instead, LLMs “nudge” us to keep going, proposing the next action. “Would you like me to build that travel itinerary for you?” “Should I compare the Nike and New Balance running shoes and recommend which is better for a marathon?” These prompts make it effortless to continue. Most of the time, I just type “sure” or “sounds good, thank you” and proceed to the next step to see what it delivers.
These nudges actively shape consumer behavior. The direction LLMs steer us in really matters. If you’re a premium brand and the LLM pushes a price comparison, you might not be thrilled — but you must understand what’s happening so you can respond strategically. We examined how various LLMs deploy these nudges across different prompts and platforms to uncover the patterns influencing user behavior — and what they imply for brands that want to maintain control over the customer journey.
What LLM nudges actually look like across platforms
Budget and deals take center stage
LLMs surface several categories of follow-up suggestions. In aggregate, 45% of all mentions focus on budgets and deals. Although the distribution isn’t uniform across tools, discounts and price considerations are treated as the default lens for what consumers supposedly care about. Perplexity and ChatGPT, for instance, are over 60% budget- and deal-oriented in their nudges…