{"id":1555485,"date":"2025-08-11T07:00:34","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T11:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.practicalecommerce.com\/?p=1555485"},"modified":"2025-08-11T07:23:57","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T11:23:57","slug":"ai-shopping-tools-threaten-affiliates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.practicalecommerce.com\/ai-shopping-tools-threaten-affiliates","title":{"rendered":"AI Shopping Tools Threaten Affiliates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chatbots and AI shopping tools that generate gift ideas and recommend products could disrupt affiliate marketing and distort attribution in the 2025 holiday shopping season and beyond.<\/p>\n

Ecommerce shops that rely on affiliate traffic for low-cost shopper acquisition during the peak holiday season should closely monitor traffic and sales volume and consider a backup plan if affiliate traffic falls short of expectations.<\/p>\n

The reason for this potential disruption is that AI is typically easier for shoppers. Type “gift ideas under $50 for a 10-year-old gamer” into ChatGPT, Grok, or Gemini, and you will get a relatively straightforward answer, not a list of sites for further research.<\/p>\n

While such a list may provide more in-depth information or product details, generative AI is easier to use.<\/p>\n

This is especially true on Google Search when the results include the AI Overviews summary. Zero clicks needed.<\/p>\n

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Ecommerce marketing managers may want to watch affiliate production during the 2025 holiday season to gauge AI’s impact.<\/p><\/div>\n

Lost Traffic<\/h3>\n

Shoppers who ask AI for products or services<\/a> effectively bypass affiliate review and recommendation sites. Skipping affiliate content could lead to lost or unattributed traffic.<\/p>\n

Each could impact a store’s revenue, although lost traffic could hurt most.<\/p>\n

Lost traffic. <\/strong>Affiliate content, such as gift guides or product roundups, may attract a smaller fraction of the consumer holiday audience in 2025.<\/p>\n

The big affiliate review sites \u2014 Wirecutter, The Inventory, or BestProducts.com \u2014 have historically thrived by capturing search traffic for “best X” or “gift ideas for” queries, especially around Black Friday and Christmas.<\/p>\n

AI search tools, such as ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews, offer similar content without clicking to a separate website. Fewer clicks lead to fewer readers, which could equal fewer ecommerce sales via the affiliate channel.<\/p>\n

While observers have raised this concern, the outcome is speculation. If AI does disrupt affiliate traffic, the 2025 peak shopping season might be the first indication.<\/p>\n

Attribution. <\/strong>The second problem relative to AI and the affiliate channel is attribution<\/a>.<\/p>\n

AI’s shopping recommendations are almost certainly trained on and derived, at least partially, from affiliate channel content.<\/p>\n

Emarketer’s Sara Lebow put it this way in a May 2025 article<\/a>, “sites like the New York Times’ Wirecutter offer curated recommendations ChatGPT can scrape, personalize, and regurgitate.”<\/p>\n

If true, this might mean that some of the sales an ecommerce shop earns via search or AI this Christmas are, at least in part, the result of affiliate efforts.<\/p>\n

In the near term, that is a bonus to merchants: sales without commissions. Over time, however, it is a disincentive. If affiliates earn less, they likely will produce less or find other ways to profit without ecommerce referrals. The result could be less traffic and fewer sales.<\/p>\n

Opportunities<\/h3>\n

I see three ways ecommerce operators can respond to affiliate marketing changes:<\/p>\n