Study: ChatGPT sales referrals still trail traditional digital channels

Digital Commerce 360 features research by Maximilian Kaiser and Christian Schulze analyzing ChatGPT’s performance in ecommerce referrals across 973 websites with $20 billion in annual revenue. The study found that LLM traffic underperformed every traditional channel except paid social media, with conversion rates for ChatGPT traffic showing gradual improvement over 12 months. The researchers concluded that ChatGPT is ’not yet ready to rival search-based traffic as a dominant driver of online sales,’ suggesting that while conversational AI is emerging as a potential marketing channel, it currently lacks the sales performance of established digital marketing methods.