diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v2.0.2.rst b/doc/source/whatsnew/v2.0.2.rst
index df7ebd8d4844f..57c305c8e21a8 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v2.0.2.rst
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v2.0.2.rst
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ Bug fixes
 - Bug in :func:`api.interchange.from_dataframe` was returning :class:`DataFrame`'s of incorrect sizes when called on slices (:issue:`52824`)
 - Bug in :func:`api.interchange.from_dataframe` was unnecessarily raising on bitmasks (:issue:`49888`)
 - Bug in :func:`merge` when merging on datetime columns on different resolutions (:issue:`53200`)
+- Bug in :func:`to_datetime` was inferring format to contain ``"%H"`` instead of ``"%I"`` if date contained "AM" / "PM" tokens (:issue:`53147`)
 - Bug in :func:`to_timedelta` was raising ``ValueError`` with ``pandas.NA`` (:issue:`52909`)
 - Bug in :meth:`DataFrame.__getitem__` not preserving dtypes for :class:`MultiIndex` partial keys (:issue:`51895`)
 - Bug in :meth:`DataFrame.convert_dtypes` ignores ``convert_*`` keywords when set to False ``dtype_backend="pyarrow"`` (:issue:`52872`)
diff --git a/pandas/_libs/tslibs/parsing.pyx b/pandas/_libs/tslibs/parsing.pyx
index 0cf03ecf34c41..71550824525eb 100644
--- a/pandas/_libs/tslibs/parsing.pyx
+++ b/pandas/_libs/tslibs/parsing.pyx
@@ -1019,6 +1019,11 @@ def guess_datetime_format(dt_str: str, bint dayfirst=False) -> str | None:
 
             output_format.append(tokens[i])
 
+    # if am/pm token present, replace 24-hour %H, with 12-hour %I
+    if "%p" in output_format and "%H" in output_format:
+        i = output_format.index("%H")
+        output_format[i] = "%I"
+
     guessed_format = "".join(output_format)
 
     try:
diff --git a/pandas/tests/tools/test_to_datetime.py b/pandas/tests/tools/test_to_datetime.py
index 0b5696116e610..92b4370e9d736 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/tools/test_to_datetime.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/tools/test_to_datetime.py
@@ -2942,6 +2942,9 @@ class TestDatetimeParsingWrappers:
             ("2005-11-09 10:15", datetime(2005, 11, 9, 10, 15)),
             ("2005-11-09 08H", datetime(2005, 11, 9, 8, 0)),
             ("2005/11/09 10:15", datetime(2005, 11, 9, 10, 15)),
+            ("2005/11/09 10:15:32", datetime(2005, 11, 9, 10, 15, 32)),
+            ("2005/11/09 10:15:32 AM", datetime(2005, 11, 9, 10, 15, 32)),
+            ("2005/11/09 10:15:32 PM", datetime(2005, 11, 9, 22, 15, 32)),
             ("2005/11/09 08H", datetime(2005, 11, 9, 8, 0)),
             ("Thu Sep 25 10:36:28 2003", datetime(2003, 9, 25, 10, 36, 28)),
             ("Thu Sep 25 2003", datetime(2003, 9, 25)),
diff --git a/pandas/tests/tslibs/test_parsing.py b/pandas/tests/tslibs/test_parsing.py
index 587527c2058d7..8408c9df5962b 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/tslibs/test_parsing.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/tslibs/test_parsing.py
@@ -208,8 +208,10 @@ def test_parsers_month_freq(date_str, expected):
         ("2011-12-30T00:00:00.000000+9:0", "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%f%z"),
         ("2011-12-30T00:00:00.000000+09:", None),
         ("2011-12-30 00:00:00.000000", "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f"),
-        ("Tue 24 Aug 2021 01:30:48 AM", "%a %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %p"),
-        ("Tuesday 24 Aug 2021 01:30:48 AM", "%A %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %p"),
+        ("Tue 24 Aug 2021 01:30:48", "%a %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S"),
+        ("Tuesday 24 Aug 2021 01:30:48", "%A %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S"),
+        ("Tue 24 Aug 2021 01:30:48 AM", "%a %d %b %Y %I:%M:%S %p"),
+        ("Tuesday 24 Aug 2021 01:30:48 AM", "%A %d %b %Y %I:%M:%S %p"),
         ("27.03.2003 14:55:00.000", "%d.%m.%Y %H:%M:%S.%f"),  # GH50317
     ],
 )