According to Reuters, U.S. retailers are shifting their online strategies this holiday season as chatbots become part of the shopping process. While most of the projected $253 billion in U.S. online sales will occur through traditional website visits and searches, shopper-facing AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini are increasingly used for product descriptions, price comparisons, and direct purchases.

Read also: Container Shipping Prices Fall After Holidays, but Red Sea Risks Still Worry Industry

“We’ve seen brands that previously were putting out three or four new blog posts or articles a month, are now trying to do 100 or 200,” said Brian Stempeck, chief executive at Evertune.ai. His company charges clients, which include apparel and shoe companies, around $3,000 per month for services to make their websites discoverable by large language models.

Retailers are building websites intended to be read solely by AI scrapers, which are automated tools that scour the internet for information. These scrapers then feed data to platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini, which offer product suggestions. Retailers are also trying new methods like posting more frequently on branded blogs or writing about products on Reddit, as they cannot advertise directly within the largest generative AI tools.

Currently, traffic from generative AI platforms remains a small fraction of overall online activity. Data firm Sensor Tower reported that ChatGPT referrals to Amazon, Walmart, and eBay in October accounted for less than 1% of each site’s overall traffic. An eBay spokesperson noted that while traffic from AI sources is small, shoppers arriving through these channels come with high purchase intent.

Bed linen company Brooklinen is paying social media influencers to discuss its products on platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok, from which AI scrapers pull information from text and audio transcripts. Brooklinen has also submitted its $199 comforter for awards from publications like the New York Times Wirecutter to increase its visibility in AI responses. Brooklinen Chief Operating Officer Rachel Levy described current traffic from agentic AI sources as “super small,” attributing this to Gen Z, the primary adopters of such tools, having less buying power.

Miami-based hair care company R+Co is buying ads on Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa based on customer questions to its Rufus agent. Google has introduced features that help shoppers use AI to track prices and buy goods, with its AI mode and Gemini chatbot considering factors like store locations and retailer quality when referring links. Google is testing ads in its AI Mode in the U.S., but not yet in the Gemini app, with existing Shopping and Performance Max campaigns eligible to appear during this test.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy stated on an October earnings call that shoppers using the Rufus AI agent are 60% more likely to make a purchase. Walmart and Target have both recently announced plans for apps that will allow people to shop directly with chatbots.

Source: IndexBox Market Intelligence Platform