New data shows a significant jump in ChatGPT referrals to retailer mobile apps — up 28% year-over-year during the Black Friday holiday shopping weekend. This trend highlights how AI-powered chat tools are beginning to influence where consumers shop and how they discover products. TechCrunch
According to analytics firm Apptopia, a referral is counted when a retail app session begins within 30 seconds after a user interacts with ChatGPT. The spike came during the Thanksgiving to Sunday shopping window known for Black Friday deals
How Much Is ChatGPT Contributing — Still Small, but Growing
While the 28% increase is impressive, ChatGPT-driven referrals remain a small fraction of total shopping traffic. On Black Friday 2024, only 0.64% of ChatGPT sessions led to a retailer app referral; this rose modestly to 0.82% in 2025
This underscores that although AI-powered shopping assistance is expanding rapidly, it’s still a niche channel compared to traditional search engines or retail-driven marketing
Who’s Benefiting — Big Retailers Take the Lead
The jump in referrals is heavily favoring major players. As per Apptopia’s data:
- Amazon captured 54% of ChatGPT referrals in 2025 — up from 40.5% the prior year.
- Walmart saw its share climb from 2.7% to 14.9%.
- Meanwhile, smaller retailers and niche brands saw their collective share drop, indicating a consolidation of AI-driven referrals toward retail giants
What’s Driving the Growth — Why ChatGPT Is Becoming a Shopping Gateway
- Ease of discovery: Users can ask ChatGPT for shopping ideas, deals or product recommendations — a simpler and more interactive experience than traditional search. Once ChatGPT suggests a product, a click can take them directly to a store’s app.
- Holiday surge + “deal hunting” mood: The Black Friday weekend — known for big discounts — seems to amplify users’ reliance on AI help to find offers and compare retailers quickly
- Retailers optimizing for AI referrals: As awareness of AI as a traffic source grows, major retailers may be ensuring their products are more visible to chat-based discovery — reinforcing their dominance.
What It Means for Retail, Small Brands & Users
- For large retailers: This trend reinforces their dominance — big players with wide product catalogs (like Amazon & Walmart) are positioned to gain most from AI-driven shopping referrals.
- For smaller retailers: If you rely on organic search or small-scale marketing, expect more competition; breaking through AI-driven discovery may require more effort (better SEO, AI-friendly product data, niche positioning).
- For users/shoppers: ChatGPT and similar AI tools are becoming a real — though still modest — gateway to shopping. For consumers, it can make deal-hunting easier and faster, especially during sale events.
- For e-commerce trends: AI-driven referrals may grow further — turning chatbots into a meaningful shopping channel, altering how online shopping traffic is generated and shared.
Outlook: Will AI-Powered Referrals Keep Growing?
Given growing comfort with AI and increasing integration by retailers, ChatGPT referrals likely will continue rising — especially during sales seasons. However, their share of total e-commerce traffic may remain modest unless AI tools become more deeply embedded in shopping behavior.
If retailers — especially smaller or niche ones — adapt by optimizing for visibility under AI-based discovery (e.g. better metadata, integrating with chat-based shopping flows), the distribution of referrals might diversify. But for now, the gains seem to still heavily favour the big players.
