The Ecomm Analyst

Every newsletter I open right now wants me to believe that ChatGPT is about to replace Google. “14% of e-commerce revenue is coming from AI” “Agentic commerce is here.” “Rewrite your product pages for LLMs immediately.”

If even half of what the think pieces were saying was true, I should have been seeing a real, measurable shift. Newsflash, I was not.

What my revenue report shows:

(screenshots are from ThoughtMetric dashboards)

ChatGPT only brings in 2% of revenue.

Let’s look at the Traffic

ChatGPT only brings in .25% of traffic.

Now, Conversion Rate

ChatGPT’s conversion rate is much lower that most of my other channels (.15%).

What I’m actually doing about it

1. I made sure my product pages are readable. Clear structured data, actual product specs, FAQs that sound like how a person would ask. Not because AI demanded it, but because it turns out writing for an LLM and writing for a confused human shopper look almost identical.

2. I stopped obsessing over being the “#1 recommendation.” I can’t control whether ChatGPT recommends me. I can control whether the click converts when it happens. That’s where my energy goes.

3. I added AI sources to my weekly reporting. Not because they’re driving revenue today, but because the trend line over six months is what will tell me if this actually becomes a channel. One snapshot tells me nothing. Six months of data will.

The honest take

AI-driven commerce will probably be a real thing. Someday. For some brands, sooner than others. ThoughtMetric also put out some benchmarks that can give you a good idea of how AI traffic is growing across their users.

It’s a sliver of traffic that converts nicely and deserves basic hygiene, not a strategic overhaul. If you’re rewriting your entire content strategy, or losing sleep about agentic commerce, you are almost certainly solving tomorrow’s problem while today’s Meta CPM eats your margin alive.

Check your reports. Look at the actual numbers. Then decide how much of this conversation is signal and how much is people selling you consulting packages.

The best part of running an e-commerce store is that the data doesn’t care what’s trendy. It just tells you what’s working.

Mine told me to calm down. Yours probably will too.