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 traffic in August, up 15% from July, per Similarweb. It also drove over 20% of referral traffic to Etsy, nearly 15% to Target, and 10% to eBay.
- 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.