The e-commerce website is no longer the only place shoppers begin. Discovery is spreading across AI chats, social platforms, marketplaces and delivery apps, while retailer sites, apps and stores remain part of the journey. The shift changes how shoppers find and compare products; it does not show that websites or stores are disappearing, or that AI assistants already handle most purchases.
What does it mean for a website to stop being the front door?
“Front door” means the first place a shopper looks for a product or an idea—not necessarily the place they pay. A person might hear about a product in a social feed, ask an AI assistant to compare options, check the retailer’s site for specifications and availability, then buy online or in a store. The journey can cross several channels, with discovery, evaluation, checkout and support happening in different places.
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That distinction matters because a change in where shopping starts is not the same as a change in where purchases happen. Referral traffic, survey answers about AI use, willingness to delegate decisions and estimates of tasks an agent might perform measure different things; none should be read as a single market-share figure.
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Salesforce reported that between August 2025 and May 2026, the rate of shoppers discovering products through brand-owned properties fell 7% and the rate using traditional search fell 15%, while the rate using newer channels—including AI assistants, social-media AI and delivery apps—grew 38%. These are Salesforce-reported changes over that period, not universal shares of shoppers or purchases. In a separate measure, Salesforce said agentic search as the first step in a shopping journey grew 200% year over year. Its analysis covered platform shopping behavior among more than 1.5 billion shoppers in 37 countries from Q1 2024 to Q1 2026, supplemented by surveys. Salesforce also reported year-over-year growth of 150% to 428% in AI-chat referral traffic in each quarter measured. The figures describe distinct measures and periods, not one combined trend line (Salesforce, September 30, 2026).
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Other findings point to a multi-channel journey rather than a wholesale move away from stores. A National Retail Federation and IBM study based on IBM proprietary research with 18,000 global consumers reports that 72% still shop in stores; 41% use AI assistants to research products, 33% to look for reviews and 31% to search for deals. “Still shop in stores” does not mean those respondents shop exclusively in person. The same study says 52% are comfortable sharing data, while 83% share overlapping concerns about privacy, misuse and unwanted marketing (NRF and IBM, January 7, 2026).
These results come from different studies, populations and methods. They support the conclusion that discovery routes are diversifying, not a claim that most customers now shop through AI or that websites have become irrelevant.
What role can each channel play?
Channels can overlap, but they do not necessarily serve shoppers equally well at every stage. The distinctions below are a practical way to think about the journey, not a published ranking of platforms.
| Channel | Where it can help | What shoppers should be able to verify |
|---|---|---|
| AI assistant | Early research, narrowing options, finding comparisons, reviews or deals | Whether claims, availability and prices are current; what sources inform the answer; whether the shopper retains control over the choice |
| Social platform | Product discovery through posts, recommendations or social-media AI | Who is making a recommendation, whether it is promotional, and where product details and purchase terms come from |
| Marketplace | Browsing multiple sellers and comparing listed products | Seller identity, product specifications, price, delivery terms and return conditions |
| Retailer website or app | Checking a retailer’s product details, services, availability and checkout options | That price, inventory, product description and terms match what the retailer can actually provide |
| Physical store | Seeing or trying a product in person and getting in-person help | Whether the item is available at that location and whether the displayed price and terms apply there |
A shopper may use one channel to discover an item and another to validate the details before paying. A retailer’s own site can therefore remain important even when it is not the first stop: it may be where a shopper confirms specifications, stock or service terms before deciding.
Will shoppers let AI make the final purchase decision?
Evidence points to more openness to help than to handing over control. In a January 2026 survey of 322 U.S. consumers, Gartner found that 31% would let AI narrow household-supply choices and 28% would let it narrow personal-electronics choices. Willingness to let AI make purchase decisions peaked at 11% in lower-stakes categories. Those figures describe a particular U.S. survey, not shoppers everywhere (Gartner, May 27, 2026).
Accuracy and usefulness are also unresolved. Among consumers who had used AI while shopping for a recent purchase, 54% in a separate Gartner survey said they had to double-check the accuracy of all information GenAI tools provided, and 62% said the information ended up wasting their time. That survey covered 846 U.S. consumers in November and December 2025. An assistant can save effort only if its recommendations are useful and its factual claims can be checked.
Visa’s 2025 online-shopper survey—1,600 respondents in the United States, 1,600 in Australia and 500 in New Zealand—found that nearly nine in ten wanted transparency into how agents make decisions, and about half would stop using agents if they lost control. These are responses to survey questions and AI-shopping scenarios, not observations of routine autonomous purchases. Visa’s stage-specific substitution estimates should be understood in that context:
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|---|---|
| Discovery | 73% |
| Evaluation | 69% |
| Cart and checkout | 62% |
| Post-purchase | 64% |
These percentages refer to tasks respondents might have agents substitute for; they are not the share of shopping transactions agents currently complete. Familiarity and adoption signals differed across the three countries Visa surveyed (Visa, 2025).
What changes for retailers when discovery happens elsewhere?
If shoppers encounter products through several services, a retailer cannot rely only on people navigating directly to its homepage. Product information needs to be clear and consistent wherever it appears, and the retailer still needs a useful destination for customers who want to verify details or complete a purchase.
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Make product information easy to understand and check
Salesforce reported that merchants said they were improving product-content quality (42%), optimizing content for conversational queries (40%), submitting feeds to AI search platforms (39%) and optimizing descriptions for natural language (38%). These are reported merchant actions, not proof that a particular tactic produces a sales lift. The practical aim is to give both people and discovery tools unambiguous details: what the product is, what distinguishes it, what it costs and what conditions apply.
Keep price, inventory and terms aligned
When a product appears in several places, inconsistent prices or stale inventory can turn discovery into a frustrating handoff. Salesforce described fragmented data, unsynchronized pricing and inventory as omnichannel challenges in its Singapore findings. In that release, only 25% of surveyed Singapore organizations said customer data was fully unified across sales, service, marketing and commerce. That figure applies to the surveyed Singapore organizations, not retailers worldwide. It illustrates why channel expansion is also an operational-data problem: shoppers need accurate information at the point where they make a decision.
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Make the handoff to checkout deliberate
A retailer should make it clear where a shopper can confirm the current price, availability, delivery or collection options, and return terms. A conversational answer or social post may prompt interest, but it should not obscure who is selling the item or what the customer agrees to when buying. A consistent, direct route to product details and service policies gives shoppers somewhere to verify an answer before committing.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What do shoppers need to trust AI-assisted commerce?
Convenience is not enough if a shopper cannot understand how a recommendation was made or correct a mistaken action. In January 2026, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office described agentic AI as technology that can automate decisions, interact with an environment and plan. It discussed possible shopping agents that might make purchases, monitor sales, source financing or negotiate prices as prospective capabilities—not as a description of what is broadly deployed today. The ICO emphasized the need for privacy safeguards and regulatory clarity (ICO, January 8, 2026).
For shoppers, the useful questions are concrete: what information does an assistant use, where did its product claims come from, can it act without approval, and how can a person review or reverse an action? For merchants, the same questions concern whether customer data is handled transparently and whether prices, inventory and product claims remain accurate across the services where shoppers encounter them. More autonomous buying makes those safeguards more consequential, not less.
What is—and is not—changing?
The evidence supports a change in the opening stages of some shopping journeys and growing use of AI for research. It does not establish that websites are obsolete, that stores are vanishing, or that most purchases already happen inside AI assistants. Surveys about willingness, reports of tool usage, referral-traffic analysis and estimates of tasks that could be delegated answer different questions. Several findings come from organizations with commercial interests in commerce, payments or AI, so their methods and populations matter when interpreting the results.
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