{
  "id": 329212,
  "title": "AI-driven search surges: Consumers shift to buying in chat",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/02/ai-driven-search-surges-consumers-shift-to-buying-in-chat",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-08-02T21:15:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Jerusalem Post Tech & Start-Ups",
    "slug": "jerusalem-post-tech-start-ups",
    "url": "https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/tech-and-start-ups/article-904369"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Salesforce's latest State of Commerce report reveals a significant shift in consumer behavior towards AI-driven search and purchase. A survey of 3,450 professionals and 4,690 consumers, along with data from over 1.5 billion global shoppers, indicates that 78% of organizations now use some form of artificial intelligence. While less than a third currently employ Agentic AI, nearly half plan to implement it within the next half a year.\n\nE-commerce traffic driven by AI tools has surged between 150% and 428% year-over-year during each measured quarter. Concurrently, the share of shoppers discovering products through conventional search has decreased by 15%, while the percentage of consumers opting for novel purchasing channels such as AI assistants and apps has risen by 38%.\n\nEighty-six percent of retailers believe that large language models like ChatGPT and Gemini will become the primary means of product discovery in the coming year. Liran Shechter, VP of digital sales at Salesforce Israel, notes that the customer journey now begins in chat, with AI filtering products before the customer reaches a retailer's website. Once the customer arrives, AI has already made the decision, and if a retailer is not part of the AI's suggested answer, it becomes invisible.\n\nThis shift to active AI conversation over passive web searching signifies a historic change in digital commerce. Consumers now expect immediate answers, recommendations, and actions rather than just a list of links. However, the report also highlights challenges faced by many organizations in adapting to this new landscape. Eighty-eight percent of retailers report an increase in vendors over the past two years, while only 27% claim their customer data is unified across all functions. Nearly half of these organizations struggle with slow response times to customer issues (40%) and measuring the impact of their commerce investments (39%). Furthermore, just 32% have fully defined key performance indicators for AI success.",
  "summary": "A new Salesforce report reveals that e-commerce traffic referred by AI users quadrupled.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}