The trend: An increasing number of consumers are weaving AI into their shopping journeys.

• Referral traffic: ChatGPT is rapidly emerging as a major driver of referral traffic to retailers’ websites, per Modern Retail. The genAI-powered tool accounted for nearly 21% of Walmart’s incoming referral traffic in August, up 15% from July, per Similarweb, which is about 1% of its overall traffic. It also drove over 20% of referral traffic to Etsy, nearly 15% to Target, and 10% to eBay. To be clear, these referrals make up only a tiny sliver of total visits. For Walmart and its peers, referral traffic represents less than 5% of all site visits, trailing far behind direct traffic, paid channels, and search engines. Still, ChatGPT’s rapid ascent into the top tier of referral sources highlights how quickly AI is reshaping online shopping behavior.
• Recommendations: GenAI is now the second-most popular source of product recommendations—trailing only physical stores but far ahead of social media, friends and family, and even brands’ own sites or apps—per a June Accenture report. Between May 2024 and June 2025, 2.1% of ChatGPT queries were shopping-related, often framed as prompts like “Recommend a laptop under $1,000,” per a study by OpenAI’s Economic Research team and Harvard economist David Deming.
• Direct sales: GenAI platforms are moving toward built-in checkout, betting that removing friction and rising consumer trust will spur adoption. At Shoptalk Fall, Target-owned Shipt announced a partnership with Perplexity and its new Comet browser, allowing users to go from a prompt about hosting a watch party to filling a cart with items and checking out—all within the chat.

The shift is speeding up: Salesforce expects AI-powered tools—including retailer assistants like Amazon’s Rufus and Walmart’s Sparky—to drive 21% of global holiday orders this year, or about $263 billion. That’s up from 19% and $229 billion last year.

Growth factors: Three key factors explain why the trend is accelerating.