For Walmart and its peers, referral clicks account for less than 5% of total site visits - outweighed by direct traffic, paid channels and search engines. But the speed at which ChatGPT has climbed into the top tier of referral sources shows howhow AI is starting to influence how consumers shop online. Shoppers are increasingly clicking through links inside AI chat responses, pushing major retailers into the shopping journey historically dominated by Google search.
Since the launch of Google AI Overviews in May 2024, zero-click search grew by 13 percentage points, reaching 69% in May 2025, while organic traffic to news sites declined significantly.