AI-Driven Search Surges as Consumers Shift to Chat-Based Commerce

A new report from Salesforce reveals that e-commerce traffic referred by AI users has quadrupled. The study, which surveyed 3,450 professionals and 4,690 consumers, found that 78% of organizations already use some form of artificial intelligence, with nearly half planning to implement Agentic AI within the next six months.

The report highlights a significant shift in consumer behavior, with e-commerce traffic referred by AI tools growing between 150% and 428% year-over-year in every measured quarter. At the same time, the proportion of shoppers discovering products through traditional search dropped by 15%, while the proportion of consumers choosing new purchasing channels increased by 38%.

Liran Shechter, VP of digital sales at Salesforce Israel, explained that 'the customer journey no longer begins on traditional search engines; it begins in chat.' He noted that AI has already done the filtering for consumers and made decisions before they arrive at a retailer's website. If a retailer is not part of the initial answer provided by AI, they become invisible to the consumer.

The report also highlights operational hurdles faced by retailers as they adapt to this new landscape. 78% of retailers report that their number of vendors has grown in the past two years, and only 27% of organizations say their customer data is fully unified across all functions.