Lightspeed Commerce CEO: our study analyzed half a million AI shopping responses and revealed who gets to compete |
Lightspeed Commerce CEO: our study analyzed half a million AI shopping responses and revealed who gets to compete
The internet gave independent retailers a fighting chance. Is AI taking it away?
For decades, the internet has promised to level the playing field for retailers. Independent businesses that once depended on customers walking through their doors gained the opportunity to reach shoppers anywhere, competing with national chains in ways that would have been unimaginable before.
Now, the growing popularity of AI search with consumers threatens to reverse that progress.
Who gets to compete?
Early signs suggest that when it comes to AI search the playing field is far from even for retailers. New research from Vaer AI, in partnership with Lightspeed Commerce, analyzing 460,000 AI-generated shopping responses across ChatGPT and Google’s AI products, found that bigger merchants have an edge from the very start. When ChatGPT included retailer names in its own web searches, 97% were large or mid-sized chains. Small and local retailers accounted for just 1-4%.
What struck me most was that independent merchants weren’t necessarily missing because AI couldn’t find them. Large and small retailers each accounted for roughly 38% of the sources AI cited. But big chains received 52% of the top recommendations, versus just 20% for smaller businesses.
Consider a shopper looking to buy office supplies in New York. Three of the six sources ChatGPT cited were small local retailers, but its first recommendation was Staples. The local options were there. They just didn’t make it........