New data shows ChatGPT’s growing influence as a source of referrals to e-commerce websites and how small its share of this market currently is.
ChatGPT referrals to retailers’ mobile apps increased 28% year-over-year during the Black Friday holiday shopping weekend, which runs from Thursday through Thanksgiving Day Sunday, according to new analysis from Apptopia, a mobile app insights provider.
However, the use of ChatGPT may not be benefiting small retailers as much as it is helping e-commerce giants Amazon and Walmart further entrench themselves. Amazon’s share of ChatGPT referrals increased from 40.5% in 2024 to 54% this year. Meanwhile, Walmart’s market share has increased from 2.7% last year to 14.9% now.
This data was collected by Apptopia’s US board and is based on consumer activity observed on mobile devices. Since it is not our own data, the numbers are just estimates. For this analysis, the company defined an introductory session as a retail mobile app session that immediately follows (within 30 seconds) a ChatGPT session.
Apptopia noted that despite significant growth from 2024, consumers are using AI chatbots to find e-commerce transactions, making up only a small portion of the overall referral market. Last year, ChatGPT referrals to e-commerce apps accounted for just 0.64% of all ChatGPT sessions on Black Friday, and this year that number has only increased to 0.82%.
In this case, the referral session was either when ChatGPT provided the searcher with a shopping idea, or when the user clicked a link directly from the chat session that led them to the retail app.
Apptopia isn’t the only company exploring how AI will impact e-commerce during the busy holiday season. Adobe reported this week that AI traffic (measured by shoppers clicking links) to U.S. retail sites increased 805% year over year on Black Friday, and people who visited retail sites from an AI chatbot were 38% more likely to make a purchase.
Additionally, Adobe announced that AI traffic to its US retail sites increased by 670% on Cyber Monday. The company noted that AI traffic has increased by 760% during the holiday shopping season so far (November 1 to December 1).
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