The trend: GenAI is becoming an indispensable tool for shoppers looking to navigate the endless aisle that is ecommerce.

By the numbers: Two-thirds of consumers who make a weekly online purchase regularly use genAI assistants like ChatGPT to inform their shopping decisions, according to a survey from ecommerce retention platform Yotpo.

Unsurprisingly, younger buyers are leading the charge.

• 58% of Gen Z already use AI assistants to shop and search for products, followed by 47% of millennials and 27% of Gen Xers.
• Younger consumers are more bullish about genAI’s potential. Roughly 1 in 3 Gen Zers believes that AI is becoming more essential to shopping and will increase their use of the technology in the next year, compared with around 1 in 4 millennials.
• A Goldman Sachs survey of interns highlights this shift: only 13% perferred shopping without any AI involvement.

What does this mean for retail? GenAI’s growing influence on customers’ purchase decisions represents both an opportunity and a threat for retailers. Those that optimize their sites to make it easier for Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Google to comb through product listings and reviews and deliver useful and accurate recommendations could reap the rewards.

However, genAI also has the potential to upend how retailers do business. The more people use genAI assistants to shop, the greater the distance becomes between retailers and their customers. That could weaken chains’ ability to build loyalty, collect first-party data, and make money from advertising.

Still, retailers have to be prepared. Companies must think of AI agents as a “hyper-curious shopper” that is crawling their sites and pulling information from product listings and reviews, Tsvika Vishnievsky, Yotpo’s senior vice president of marketing, told EMARKETER.

• Brands need to make sure they have the right content—including detailed product reviews that offer a diverse array of opinions—to give chatbots information that is both accurate and useful to shoppers.
• Companies that hesitate on these changes could be left in the dust as more shoppers turn to genAI tools.

Implications for retailers: GenAI is in the early stages of transforming the customer journey, but it is no doubt becoming a front door to ecommerce. Retailers need to be prepared for a future when AI, not shoppers, are the primary visitors to their sites.

Those who invest in AI-ready content, authentic reviews, and transparent product data will lure tomorrow’s customers. Those who don’t risk fading into the background of the AI-driven marketplace.