Will agentic commerce push more merchants into marketplaces?
Agentic commerce has cleared its first hurdle, that of consumer demand. ChatGPT handles an estimated 50m shopping queries a day, and AI-referred traffic to US retail sites rose by nearly 400% in the first quarter of 2026. The unresolved question is where that demand settles once a purchase is made. The early evidence points to the scaled, branded marketplace.
According to Similarweb, marketplaces already receive more AI-referred traffic than any other retail category, some 47m visits in the year to May 2026, and continue to grow faster than their scale would predict.
The mechanism is a mutually reinforcing relationship between consumer preference and LLM recommendation, and its logic points towards a concentration of agent-led commerce on large platforms, with material consequences for merchants and their payment suppliers.
Managing Director, PSE Consulting.
The pattern in AI referral traffic
Revealed consumer preference is a much more reliable guide to market development than...
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