Key stat: Retailer-native AI assistants will drive 54.1% of US AI-driven retail ecommerce sales in 2026, keeping retailers ahead of general-purpose AI platforms through 2030, according to a July report from EMARKETER.

Beyond the chart:

• Shoppers happily research with AI, then leave to buy. Just 10% of AI-assisted digital shoppers usually finish the purchase on the AI platform itself, while 69% head to a retailer's website or app, according to a survey from Publicis Commerce and EMARKETER.
• Trust explains much of that gap. One in four US shoppers say they trust retailers most to handle the entire shopping experience, compared with 16% for a tech company like Google and just 7% for an AI platform such as ChatGPT, according to Bain.

Use this chart: Drop this in your 2027 planning deck when leadership asks whether to chase storefronts inside ChatGPT and Gemini. Use it to fund your own on-site AI assistant first, then point to the shrinking gap after 2028 to justify a parallel bet on AI platform-originated commerce.

Related EMARKETER reports:

• The Agentic Commerce Ecosystem 2026 (EMARKETER subscription required)
• The State of AI Shopping Assistants (EMARKETER subscription required)

Note: Retail ecommerce sales include products or services ordered using the internet, regardless of the method of payment or fulfillment. Travel and event tickets, payments such as bill pay, taxes, or money transfers, restaurant sales, food services and drinking place sales, and gambling and other vice ...More

Methodology: Estimates are based on the analysis of data from other research firms, including traffic data to US retail sites, session behavior, reported and estimated revenues of major online retailers, consumer online buying trends, and macro-level economic conditions.