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The e-commerce website may no longer be where many shoppers begin discovering products. More journeys now start in AI chats, social feeds, marketplaces, or delivery apps, then move between those channels, a retailer’s site or app, a store, and checkout. That changes the website’s role; it does not show that websites, stores, or retailer-controlled checkout are disappearing.
What does it mean for a website to stop being the “front door”?
The “front door” is the first place a shopper goes to discover or explore a product—not necessarily where they pay. A shopper might ask an AI assistant for recommendations, check reviews in a social feed, compare options on a retailer’s website, and buy in an app or store. Discovery, evaluation, checkout, and after-sale support can happen in different places.
That distinction matters because evidence of more discovery through AI or social platforms is not evidence that most purchases are completed there. The journey is becoming more distributed, rather than moving wholesale from websites to one replacement channel.
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Salesforce reported that, between August 2025 and May 2026, its measured rate of product discovery through brand-owned properties fell 7% and through traditional search fell 15%, while the rate for newer channels—including AI assistants, social-media AI, and delivery apps—grew 38%. These are changes in Salesforce-reported rates over that period, not universal market shares or the percentage of all shoppers using each channel.
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In the same September 2026 release, Salesforce said agentic search as a first step in shopping grew 200% year over year. Its analysis covered platform shopping behavior from more than 1.5 billion shoppers across 37 countries between Q1 2024 and Q1 2026, supplemented by surveys. It also reported year-over-year growth in AI-chat referral traffic ranging from 150% to 428% in each quarter measured. These metrics describe different behaviors and should not be combined into one estimate of AI’s share of commerce. Salesforce’s release is a company-produced analysis, not a neutral census of every shopper or retailer.
Different channels can play different roles
| Channel | Role in the journey | What to keep in mind |
|---|---|---|
| AI assistant | Product discovery, research, comparison, and potentially other tasks | Current survey findings show more willingness to use AI for help than to hand it final purchase decisions. |
| Social platform | Discovery and product research | A recommendation or product mention can start a journey without being the place the shopper completes the purchase. |
| Marketplace | Product search, comparison, and purchase | It is one of several digital touchpoints identified in Visa’s research, alongside search engines, business websites, social media, and online ads. |
| Brand or retailer website | Product information, comparison, purchase, and support | It remains a place shoppers can go for brand-provided details and to continue a journey that began elsewhere. |
| Delivery app | Discovery and access to products available for delivery | Salesforce includes delivery apps among the newer channels in its reported comparison. |
| Physical store | Product exploration and in-person shopping | Digital discovery does not make the store irrelevant: NRF and IBM report that 72% of surveyed consumers still shop in stores. |
The table describes possible roles, not a standardized ranking or a claim that every channel serves every function. Visa’s consumer research, conducted in 2025 with online shoppers in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, organized AI assistance across discovery, evaluation, cart and checkout, and post-purchase stages. Its findings reflect survey responses to AI-shopping scenarios rather than direct observation of routine purchases. Visa’s report also identifies search engines, online marketplaces, business websites, social media, and online ads as shopping touchpoints.
How much control are shoppers willing to give AI?
There is a meaningful difference between asking AI to help and authorizing it to choose and buy. 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 topped out at 11% in lower-stakes categories. Those findings suggest that assistance may be easier for shoppers to accept than handing over the final decision; they are not global adoption rates. Gartner’s May 2026 release reports the survey details.
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Visa’s 2025 survey similarly found that nearly nine in ten respondents wanted transparency into how AI agents make decisions, and about half said they would stop using agents if they lost control. These are stated preferences from online shoppers in three countries, not observed rates of people abandoning a real purchasing tool. For possible uses beyond product research, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office has discussed agents that could make purchases, monitor sales, source financing, or negotiate prices as prospective capabilities. The ICO also emphasized privacy and regulatory clarity; it did not establish that such functions are already broadly deployed. The ICO’s January 2026 discussion sets out that perspective.
Does a more digital journey mean stores are going away?
No. The NRF and IBM study, based on IBM proprietary research of 18,000 global consumers, reports that 72% still shop in stores. The same study says 41% use AI assistants to research products, 33% to look for reviews, and 31% to search for deals. These figures describe reported activities, not mutually exclusive shopper groups: someone can use an assistant and also shop in a store. NRF and IBM’s January 2026 summary presents the findings.
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For shoppers, the likely change is choice of starting point—not a single new destination that replaces every old one. An AI assistant may help surface options; a website may provide product specifics; a store may serve an in-person visit. The usefulness of each depends on the task and on whether the information remains consistent as the shopper moves between channels.
What changes for retailers when discovery starts elsewhere?
When a retailer is not the first touchpoint, it still needs accurate, usable product information wherever shoppers encounter its products. Salesforce reports that merchants are responding by improving product-content quality (42%), optimizing content for conversational queries (40%), submitting feeds to AI search platforms (39%), and optimizing product descriptions for natural language (38%). These are reported merchant actions in Salesforce’s release, not proof that any particular tactic improves sales or guarantees visibility.
Keeping information consistent is also an operational challenge. In Salesforce’s Singapore-specific findings, only 25% of surveyed organizations said customer data was fully unified across sales, service, marketing, and commerce. The release describes inconsistent pricing and unsynchronized inventory as omnichannel failure points. These figures and examples concern the surveyed Singapore organizations, not all businesses worldwide.
A practical checklist for a distributed journey
- Make product facts understandable. Keep descriptions clear enough for people and conversational search tools to interpret, and ensure key specifications answer the questions shoppers are likely to ask.
- Keep price and availability aligned. Conflicting information across a feed, site, app, or store can undermine confidence after discovery has already happened.
- Make the next step clear. Shoppers should be able to reach a retailer’s product details, purchase flow, or support without losing context when they move from another channel.
- Preserve shopper choice. Provide ways to compare options and check important details, rather than treating automated recommendations as a substitute for consent or control.
- Explain data use. NRF and IBM report that 52% of surveyed consumers are comfortable sharing data, while 83% share overlapping concerns about privacy, misuse, and unwanted marketing. Comfort with sharing is not blanket permission for every use; retailers and intermediaries need to make data practices understandable.
The operational goal is not simply to appear in more places. It is to ensure product information, prices, stock, and service remain dependable as a shopper moves between them.
What the evidence does—and does not—show
The available findings point to changing discovery habits and interest in AI-assisted research. They do not show that websites are obsolete, that most purchases already happen inside AI assistants, or that shoppers broadly want AI to make purchases for them. The figures also come from different methods: platform behavior, surveys of stated willingness, consumer reports of usage, and estimates of tasks people might delegate. They cannot be treated as interchangeable measures of market share or actual autonomous transactions.
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The sources include company-produced studies and analyses from organizations with commercial interests in commerce, payments, or AI. Their findings are useful when attributed with their scope and method, but no single study establishes a universal path shoppers will follow. A careful takeaway is that the website is becoming one important stop in a multi-channel journey, rather than the only reliable entrance to it.
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