Frontiers: ChatGPT Referrals to E-Commerce Websites: How Do LLMs Compare Against Traditional Channels?

The authors thank Daniel Schmeh and Jan Seifried for their brilliant ideas and helpful discussions on this paper; Daniel Blaseg, Alexander Bleier, and Michel Clement for helpful feedback and early comments; and Grips Intelligence for supporting academic research by providing the extensive data used in this study entirely free of charge. This research was supported by Grips Intelligence through the provision of proprietary data and computing resources. No direct financial support was provided to the authors. No additional third-party funding was received.

The first author is employed by Grips Intelligence, a market intelligence company serving multiple clients, including various technology platforms. Grips Intelligence’s business model depends on delivering accurate, unbiased market intelligence; it has no vested interest in making any particular platform, including Google, OpenAI, or others analyzed in this study, appear more or less favorable.

The company’s involvement was limited to: (1) providing access to data, (2) covering computing costs for data processing, and (3) offering technical guidance on data collection and segmentation methodology. Grips Intelligence did not commission the study. The company had no role in formulating the research questions, designing the study, selecting analytical methods, interpreting results, or drafting the manuscript, and it did not approve the manuscript prior to submission. The authors declare no other financial or non-financial competing interests.