Data Shows Surge of ChatGPT Referrals to E-Commerce Apps

New data suggests ChatGPT is becoming a more notable driver of traffic to e-commerce apps — though its overall share remains tiny, and the biggest beneficiaries are retail giants rather than smaller stores.

A new analysis from mobile app data collector Apptopia found that retailer app sessions directly following a ChatGPT session rose 28% year-over-year during the Black Friday weekend. Apptopia defines a “referral session” as a retail app session that begins within 30 seconds of a ChatGPT session.

But the increase isn’t spread evenly across the market. Amazon captured 54% of all ChatGPT-driven referral traffic, up sharply from 40.5% last year. Walmart jumped from 2.7% to 14.9%, showing significant momentum. Smaller retailers, by contrast, saw far less impact.

Still, the broader role of chatbots in holiday shopping remains modest. Last Black Friday, just 0.64% of ChatGPT sessions led to an e-commerce referral. This year, that number rose to 0.82% — growth, but from a very small base. Referrals include cases where ChatGPT provided a shopping idea or when users clicked a link from the chat that opened a retailer’s app.

Apptopia’s findings come as other analytics firms also report a surge in AI-driven shopping behavior. Adobe noted that AI-referred traffic (based on shoppers clicking chatbot-generated links) to U.S. retail sites increased 805% year-over-year on Black Friday. Users arriving from AI chatbots were 38% more likely to complete a purchase, Adobe said.

Cyber Monday saw similar momentum, with AI-driven traffic up 670%. Across the broader holiday season so far (Nov 1–Dec 1), Adobe reports 760% growth in AI traffic to retail sites.

While AI referrals remain a small slice of the total e-commerce funnel, the growth signals how quickly chatbots like ChatGPT are becoming part of the shopping discovery process — and how strongly the largest retailers are positioned to benefit.