ChatGPT Referrals Surge 28%, Feeding Retail Giants

ChatGPT drove a 28% year-over-year surge in mobile shopping referrals to major U.S. retail apps over the Black Friday holiday weekend, according to new data from Apptopia, signaling AI’s growing but still niche role in e-commerce.

How Amazon and Walmart Dominate AI Referrals

Big Retailers Crowd Out Smaller Competitors

While artificial intelligence is increasingly guiding consumers toward holiday deals, this shift primarily benefits the market’s largest players rather than smaller merchants. According to the analysis by mobile app insights provider Apptopia, retail giants Amazon and Walmart captured the vast majority of these AI-driven shoppers during the Thanksgiving-through-Sunday shopping window.

Amazon saw its share of ChatGPT referrals climb to 54% this year, up from 40.5% in 2024. Walmart experienced even more dramatic growth, with its share of ChatGPT-driven traffic skyrocketing from 2.7% last year to 14.9% during the same period.

Understanding the Data and AI’s True Market Share

Apptopia gathered this intelligence through its U.S. consumer panel, which tracks observed user activity on mobile devices. Because these figures are based on external observations rather than direct first-party data, they represent calculated estimates. For the purposes of this study, a “referral session” was defined as any retail mobile app launch occurring within 30 seconds of an active ChatGPT session.

Despite the year-over-year growth, AI chatbot recommendations still represent a tiny fraction of the broader e-commerce ecosystem. Apptopia pointed out that ChatGPT referrals to retail apps accounted for just 0.64% of all ChatGPT sessions on Black Friday last year, rising only slightly to 0.82% this year. These referrals occurred either when the chatbot suggested a specific shopping concept or when a user clicked a direct link within their chat window to open a retailer’s app.

Adobe Reports Massive AI Traffic Spikes

Apptopia is not alone in tracking the influence of artificial intelligence on holiday commerce. Complementary research from Adobe revealed that AI-driven traffic to U.S. retail websites—measured by direct clicks on AI-generated links—surged by an astonishing 805% year-over-year on Black Friday. Furthermore, consumers who arrived at a retail site via an AI chatbot were 38% more likely to complete a purchase compared to standard traffic.

This upward trajectory continued throughout the holiday weekend. Adobe reported that AI-driven traffic to U.S. e-commerce sites grew by 670% on Cyber Monday. Looking at the broader holiday shopping season from November 1 through December 1, overall AI-referred retail traffic has surged by 760% year-over-year.