Recent findings highlight ChatGPT’s expanding presence as a source of referrals for online shopping platforms, though its overall contribution to this sector remains modest.
Insights from Apptopia, a mobile app analytics company, reveal that referrals from ChatGPT to retailer mobile apps surged by 28% year-over-year during the Black Friday shopping period, spanning from Thanksgiving Thursday through Sunday.
Despite this growth, the benefits of ChatGPT referrals appear to be concentrated among major e-commerce players. Amazon, for instance, saw its share of ChatGPT-driven referrals climb to 54%, up from 40.5% the previous year. Walmart also experienced a notable increase, with its portion rising from 2.7% to 14.9%.
Apptopia’s data is based on observed consumer behavior from a U.S. mobile device panel and should be considered as estimates rather than exact figures. For this study, a referral session was defined as a retail app session that occurred within 30 seconds after a ChatGPT session.
Even with significant year-over-year gains, Apptopia points out that AI chatbots like ChatGPT still account for a very small fraction of total e-commerce referrals. On Black Friday last year, only 0.64% of ChatGPT sessions led to e-commerce app referrals, a number that increased slightly to 0.82% this year.
In these instances, a referral session was counted whenever ChatGPT either suggested a shopping idea or when a user clicked a link in their chat that directed them to a retailer’s app.
Apptopia is not alone in examining AI’s influence on online retail during the holiday rush. Adobe reported that AI-driven traffic to U.S. retail websites, measured by shoppers clicking through from AI chatbots, soared by 805% year-over-year on Black Friday. Additionally, visitors arriving via AI chatbots were 38% more likely to make a purchase.
Adobe also noted a 670% increase in AI-generated traffic to retail sites on Cyber Monday. Overall, from November 1 to December 1, AI-driven visits to U.S. retail sites have risen by 760% compared to the previous year.