Where AI belongs in e-commerce (and where it doesn’t)

The early data on artificial intelligence shopping is in and it has a story to tell. Shopify reported that shoppers who arrive at e-commerce sites through AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini are 50 percent more likely to convert to purchase than those coming from organic search. Not only are they more likely to make a purchase but when they do, they spend 14 percent more per order. More than half of these AI-referred sessions land directly on a product page, ready to buy.