ChatGPT Driving Increased Traffic to Retailers and Brands in 2025, Particularly From Younger Generations

SEO has long been regarded as a staple of internet marketing and publishing culture, with an entire industry popping into existence to support its often inscrutable and ever-changing nature.

Now, as Modern Retail indicated, it seems that a new path forward for retailers and brands looking to attract eyeballs is opening up: AI search results. Being included in queries related to certain keywords, questions, or concerns may drive significant traffic to your website or blog, with Modern Retail providing two case studies to support this theory.

ChatGPT Drives Traffic to Viv, Joe & Bella

Modern Retail cast the spotlight on two brands which had greatly benefited from ChatGPT results — period care company Viv and adaptive apparel brand Joe & Bella.

In Viv’s case, a study by the scientific journal “Environment International” was the impetus for increased AI queries coming from users looking for sustainable menstrual products that were free of toxic elements. Viv’s blog benefited from these search results, seeing a 400% increase in traffic as a result, and a 436% increased sales conversion rate from users who found the blog via AI responses.

Kelly Donohue, Viv’s marketing and design director, credited the extremely detailed and granular nature of the company’s blog for having been selected as a reputable source for inclusion, and dispersion, within and from the ChatGPT model’s database.

“These AI tools are specifically scraping through content, but looking for more than just keywords,” she said. “They’re looking for a cohesive response that they can give to people that includes context, sources and background.”

Joe & Bella co-founder and CEO Jimmy Zollo was astounded after purchases spiked during the holiday season, with the culprit eventually being discovered as ChatGPT. Without knowing precisely what keywords or optimization the company had employed to garner such attention — one guess was the central keyword “adaptive clothing” — Zollo indicated that his company was poised to harness the power of its AI-generated lead-ins in the future.

“It was pretty cool and unexpected, but we need to better understand how to optimize for these searches going forward,” he said.

Gen Z, Millennials Turning to ChatGPT and Other AI Models for Answers (and Product Recommendations)

Supporting this line of thinking, data and intelligence provider Spins conducted research into the state of natural and wellness products in 2025, producing a comprehensive report.

Contained within the pages of that report was one interesting finding: Alongside traditional pathways to product search — including Google searches and Amazon reviews — Spins suggested that generative AI queries and TikTok influencers were also gaining traction in this space.

In fact, according to a company poll, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok recommendations were valued more highly than Google search results by members of Gen Z. For millennials, while Google search results edged out TikTok as point of research, Instagram and YouTube content prevailed.

For both cohorts, a significant number of respondents indicated turning to ChatGPT or Google Gemini for product information (in this case, related to supplements). A full 20% of millennials polled indicated as much, as well as 17% of Gen Z respondents. By contrast, only 6% of Gen Xers and 2% of baby boomers reported the same search behaviors.

Dan Buckstaff, Spins chief product officer, spoke to the difficulty of leveraging this new customer lead pipeline.

“Similar to 15 years ago when we were questioning how SEO worked, we’re left with questioning how brands can benefit from AI environments,” Buckstaff said, as quoted by Modern Retail. “Especially in the present state, when three different AI solutions can have three different answers to a posed question.”

The general solution, Buckstaff suggested, was to play it safe and make sure all content related to your brand is informative, properly vetted, and extensive in its description.

“From the messaging about your product on its packaging to what’s shared on social media or via an influencer, robust messaging in the right places can ensure a product shines in all discovery formats,” he concluded.