Though observers remain concerned about the huge amounts of capital being invested in artificial intelligence by hyperscalers, they arguably are doing so because AI poses disruptive threats comparable to past general-purpose technologies. It is, in other words, quite literally "existential," the very existence of a thing.
In other words, as happens with GPTs, AI could fundamentally change how value is created and captured across industries such as search and e-commerce. Indeed, that happens frequently when a GPT arises.
Electricity enabled entirely new industries built around electric motors (factories, appliances) and communications (radio, eventually TV).
The internet revolutionized communication (email, social media), information access (web search), commerce (e-commerce), and entertainment (streaming). It decimated industries like print media and physical retail while creating whole new replacements led by different firms than led the legacy industries.
Looking only at e-commerce, there already are glimmers of potential change. According to an analysis by Adobe Analytics, AI-driven traffic to retail websites surged 1,200 percent during the most-recent 2024 holiday shopping season.
Adobe’s survey of 5,000 U.S. consumers suggests 39 percent have used generative AI for online shopping, with 53 percent planning to do so in 2025.
Consumers use generative AI for research (55 percent of respondents), receiving product recommendations (47 percent), seeking deals (43 percent), getting present ideas (35 percent), finding unique products (35 percent) and creating shopping lists (33 percent).
According to a survey conducted by Adobe Analytics based on one trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, the trend extended beyond the holiday season as traffic to retail sites from AI-driven searches increased 1,200 percent in February compared to July 2024 and has doubled every two months since September 2024.
On Cyber Monday alone, traffic from generative AI sources soared by 1,950 percent from last year’s event, Adobe says.
Compared to consumers coming from non-AI traffic sources (including paid search, affiliates and partners, email, organic search and social media), consumers coming from generative AI sources show eight percent higher engagement as they dwell sites for a longer period of time.
These visitors also browse 12 percent more pages per visit, with a 23 percent lower bounce rate, Adobe notes.
At least for the moment, conversion (visits that become purchases) is the one area where AI lags other sources of traffic.
Traffic from generative AI sources is nine percent less likely to convert compared to other sources of traffic. But conversion rates are improving. In July 2024, the AI conversion gap was 43 percent.
As you might therefore guess, this poses threats to Amazon.
Generative AI-powered Search engines and chat assistants are becoming increasingly important sources of consumer traffic for online web stores.
In January 2025 Amazon had about 455 million monthly unique visitors. But AI assistants and chatbots collectively are getting three-digit millions of daily interactions.
And ChatGPT already is moving in the direction of adding shopping and e-commerce features.
The point is that GPTs tend to disrupt industries and economies. So it makes sense that Amazon would invest heavily in AI to protect its commerce business, as Google will invest to protect its search business.
And sometimes that works. Manufacturing firms previously reliant on steam, water, or manual power redesigned their factories around electric motors.
Energy companies focused initially on coal gas for lighting and kerosene for lamps pivoted their refining processes to prioritize gasoline production as demand shifted from lighting oil to fuel for internal combustion engines.
Likewise, IBM, originally a leader in tabulating machines and typewriters, transitioned into the mainframe computer era. Walmart and Target added significant online commerce to their place-based operations.
Many legacy content firms and industry segments were battered by the internet’s alternatives, but a few have managed to stabilize and even grow their online businesses.
And financial firms have moved rapidly to embrace online commerce as well. The point is that the legacy providers are not without weapons in the fight to retain their relevance and even dominance.
Still, the hyperscalers are investing so heavily in AI for obvious reasons: AI poses a genuine threat to their core business models.
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