Signal Generative AI platforms are treated as the new shopping search engines

Summary

Generative AI platforms are becoming the new search engines for shopping. CB Insights describes AI as hijacking e-commerce traffic, since consumers increasingly start product searches in chat assistants instead of traditional search engines. Visits that once flowed to retailers' websites are being intercepted by AI tools that answer questions and recommend products directly. This weakens the role of the branded storefront as the place where shoppers first meet a product. It also forces brands to rethink how they are found, leading to new practices such as optimising content for AI answers. The trend is a key part of the firm's broader argument that discovery and checkout are merging into one AI interface.