New data shows ChatGPT’s growing influence as a referrer to e-commerce websites, but also highlights how small its current share of this market remains. According to a new analysis, ChatGPT referrals to retailer mobile apps increased 28% year-over-year during the Black Friday holiday shopping weekend, which runs from Thanksgiving Day through Sunday.
However, the use of ChatGPT may not be benefiting smaller retailers as much as it is helping to further entrench e-commerce giants like Amazon and Walmart. This year, Amazon’s share of ChatGPT referrals grew to 54%, up from 40.5% in 2024. Walmart’s share increased from 2.7% last year to 14.9%.
The data was collected from a panel based on observed consumer activity on mobile devices. As it is not first-party data, the figures are estimates. For this analysis, a referral session was defined as a retail mobile app session that directly followed a ChatGPT session within 30 seconds.
Despite the significant year-over-year jump, consumers’ use of AI chatbots to find e-commerce deals is still a small sliver of the overall referral market. Last year, ChatGPT’s referrals to e-commerce apps represented only 0.64% of all ChatGPT sessions on Black Friday. That figure grew to just 0.82% this year. In this context, a referral session occurred when ChatGPT gave the searcher a shopping idea or the user clicked a link directly from their chat session that brought them to the retail app.
Other firms are also examining how AI is impacting e-commerce during the busy holiday shopping season. Adobe reported this week that AI traffic to U.S. retail sites, measured by shoppers clicking on a link, increased by 805% year-over-year on Black Friday. Those who landed on a retail site from an AI chatbot were 38% more likely to make a purchase.
Additionally, Adobe said that AI traffic to U.S. retail sites on Cyber Monday increased by 670%. For the holiday shopping season so far, from November 1 to December 1, AI traffic is up 760%.