Shopping referrals from ChatGPT have more than doubled over the past year across the US, UK, Germany, and France, reinforcing how AI-driven discovery is increasingly influencing online shopping behaviour.
That’s according to a new Bain and Company report on how Agentic AI is reshaping the online shopping journey and what that means for retailers.
The findings also build on recent research on how AI agents are rewiring demand generation and digital discovery, which estimates that fully agentic commerce could reach $300 billion to $500 billion in US revenues by 2030, representing up to one-quarter of total e-commerce.
Key findings include:
- AI now accounts for up to a quarter of referral traffic for some retailers, though it still represents less than 1% of total traffic, according to Bain’s updated analysis.
- Traditional shopping gateways remain dominant even as AI becomes increasingly integrated into those platforms: nearly 70% of US consumers still begin shopping on Amazon, while more than 50% start with Google search.
- Around 8% of US consumers now say they begin their online shopping journey with either ChatGPT or another generative AI chatbot, compared with 17% of unique online shoppers in November 2025 who said they planned to begin their holiday shopping with AI platforms.
- While AI-assisted shopping continues to grow, around half of consumers still say they are cautious about allowing AI agents to autonomously complete purchases from start to finish.
Additional findings from the Bain brief Rewiring Demand Generation in the Age of AI Agents shows:
- 44% of online buyers mostly start their journey in a large language model or split their search between AI tools and traditional search engines.
- 30% to 45% of US consumers already use AI for shopping support, while 64% say they have used or are open to using AI to complete a purchase.
