By Lee Metters, Regional Senior Brand Partnership and Retail Media Lead at Awin
Retail media has become one of the fastest growing areas of digital advertising, as brands and retailers fight to stay visible at the point of purchase. From social media to search engines, to out-of-home displays, every space has become a fiercely contested battleground for consumers’ attention. But now, ChatGPT is changing the rules.
Earlier this year, OpenAI rolled out a new feature called Product Finder, allowing users to discover and shop for products directly within ChatGPT. Rather than typing a query into a traditional search engine or retail website, users can simply describe what they’re looking for, and receive AI-generated product recommendations, complete with comparisons, reviews, pros and cons, and links to purchase. It provides the customer with a very simple journey from product discovery through to conversion.
While there’s been no official data released on click-through rates from Product Finder, we know that ChatGPT handles over 1 billion web interactions every day. Even if just a small slice of those is shopping-related, that means tens of millions of product discovery sessions are happening weekly within the OpenAI platform.
That volume has the potential to reshape the way people discover, evaluate, and ultimately buy products online.
A real-life test: baby monitor search query
My wife and I are expecting, so to see this in action, I asked ChatGPT to recommend a baby monitor available in the UK. We had specific criteria in mind, so we included those details in our search query and allowed ChatGPT to work its magic. Among the options it returned, the first listing and recommended product was the Hubble Connected Nursery Pal Glow. ChatGPT provided a thorough breakdown of its features and recommended that we purchase it from John Lewis & Partners.
Not entirely trusting ChatGPT’s recommendation, I looked directly on the John Lewis website and searched for “baby monitors.” The first product listing, a sponsored placement on that category page, was the same Hubble monitor. This placement was almost certainly the result of an endemic retail media campaign, where brands pay for prominent positioning within a retailer’s own website or app.
This potential conflict caught my attention. ChatGPT directed me straight to the product page, effectively bypassing the endemic ad-placement on the category page. If ChatGPT is surfacing the same product, sourced from third-party media content, as a retailer’s own sponsored listing, we are witnessing an important convergence in retail media strategy.
So, what happens if more product discovery starts on AI?
This small yet revealing experience raises a bigger question. If platforms like ChatGPT become a central part of the product discovery process, what will happen to traditional retail media strategies?
Today, endemic retail media largely revolves around on on-site placements, such as sponsored product listings, category banners, and carousels within retailer environments. However, AI-driven tools like ChatGPT introduce a new dynamic by shifting the starting point of consumers’ shopping journeys outside retailer ecosystems where they might be influenced by paid placements.
This marks a fundamental shift in how influence is won. To keep up, brands and retailers must reconsider how they allocate retail media spend and how they will ensure visibility and influence in AI-generated product discovery.
The emerging opportunity with media sites
Traditionally, media sites have brought great value to affiliate strategies, but with the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT, we’re now seeing them play an increasingly vital role in the broader offsite endemic retail media landscape. According to Digiday, ChatGPT drove over 243.8 million visits to media sites in April 2025, a dramatic 98% increase since January 2025. Many of those media sites are being cited directly within AI product recommendations, effectively positioning them as trusted intermediaries in the shopping journey.
Take my baby monitor shopping experience. One of the sources cited by ChatGPT was Expert Reviews, a media site that not only informed the recommendation but also included an affiliate link driving traffic back to John Lewis. That’s a clear indication of how offsite content is powering AI-driven commerce, and highlights the need for integrated, multi-channel retail strategies.
If AI platforms like ChatGPT are to become the new top of funnel, then endemic retail media must evolve beyond the boundaries of onsite placements. Retailers and brands should consider allocating parts of their endemic budgets to fund high-quality, offsite content, especially content that is likely to rank within AI-generated recommendations.
Currys provides a strong model here. They’ve invested in endemic-funded media campaigns for some time, using third-party content to attract high-intent shoppers back into key category pages, where their own onsite retail media campaigns continue the conversion journey. It’s a smart, full-funnel approach. This type of content feeds into AI-generated responses and engages shoppers earlier in their decision-making process, often before they’ve even visited a retailer’s site.
Ultimately, retailers and brands that partner with media publishers, affiliates, and content creators now will be best positioned to stay visible and competitive as the digital path to purchase evolves.
