A new study from German researchers is poking a few holes in the hype around AI-powered shopping. Analyzing more than 50k ChatGPT referrals vs. 164 million traditional transactions across nearly 1,000 e-commerce sites, they found that while ChatGPT may be driving fresh traffic, it’s not delivering at checkout. Conversion rates from ChatGPT referrals lagged behind every major channel except paid social, and revenue per session trailed both organic and paid search. Still, ChatGPT now accounts for over 90% of traffic from LLMs—which says more about its dominance than its commercial muscle (it contributed less than 0.2% of total traffic in the dataset).
There is a silver lining: ChatGPT’s impact is trending upward. Conversion rates steadily improved month by month during the 12-month study, even as site traffic from the bot grew. Users referred by ChatGPT also showed solid engagement—low bounce, decent session depth—which suggests intent is there, even if trust isn’t. In fact, many shoppers seem to use ChatGPT as a research tool before heading elsewhere to hit “buy.” Skepticism seems to hinge on whether ChatGPT is perceived as a safe and legitimate place to transact, not just ask questions.
OpenAI is betting that Instant Checkout—a new feature allowing users to complete purchases inside the ChatGPT interface—will help close the trust gap and finally convert curious chats into revenue. With Etsy integrated and Shopify and Walmart on the way, retailers like Princess Polly are preparing to test it, hoping for both sales and conversational data gold. Whether shoppers are ready to put their credit cards in the chat remains to be seen, but one thing’s clear: if OpenAI wants to justify its infrastructure tab, product recommendations alone aren’t going to cut it.
Full story at Digiday.