Last updated on October 29, 2025 at 5:45 PM
The Beecommercer Daily Buzz
Date: Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Brought to you by: beecommercer.com
A new study is providing a much-needed reality check on the current state of AI-driven commerce, revealing that traffic from generative AI tools is not yet converting into sales. At the same time, Google is doubling down on its AI ad strategy, rolling out a major new feature set for advertisers.
Here’s the essential news you need to know today.
The AI Reality Check: ChatGPT Traffic Isn’t Converting (Yet)
In a fascinating, data-backed report from Modern Retail, a new study has found that e-commerce sites are seeing very low sales and conversion rates from traffic referred by ChatGPT.
This suggests that, for now, consumers are primarily using the tool for top-of-funnel research and information gathering, not for bottom-funnel, “ready-to-buy” actions. However, experts in the report are quick to note that this is almost certain to change as AI models become more commercially-minded and “agentic” shopping features are integrated, which will allow the AI to complete purchases on a user’s behalf.
Google’s Big AI-Powered Ad Feature Drop
Google has just announced a major new “feature drop” for its Demand Gen campaigns, embedding AI more deeply into the creative and ad experience. The official announcement includes:
- AI-Powered Image-to-Video: A new feature that can automatically transform static images from your product feed or asset library into simple, short videos, helping you expand your video creative inventory.
- Scrollable Sitelinks in Maps: Ads in Google Maps will now feature scrollable sitelinks, allowing local businesses to showcase more information and options.
- New Text Guidelines: A new “Text Guidelines” feature is also rolling out to help advertisers write more effective and compliant ad copy.
More Transparency (and Automation) for Google Ads
Google is also making two other significant changes to its ad platform:
- PMax Gets More Transparent: In a major win for advertisers, the Performance Max search term report will now show the “source” of the terms. This will tell you if a term came from one of your assets, a landing page, or was automatically generated by Google’s AI. This is a crucial step forward, offering more transparency into the PMax “black box.”
- More Automation: On the other hand, Google is quietly testing a feature that automatically sets the “new customer value” for advertisers. This is another step toward a more fully automated system where Google’s AI controls more of the core campaign settings.
Final Buzz
Today’s news highlights the “tale of two AIs” in e-commerce. On one side, we have the current reality: generative AI is a powerful research tool but not yet a sales driver. On the other, we have Google’s full-steam-ahead push, embedding AI deeper into every aspect of its ad platform. The key takeaway is that while the “agentic AI” future is coming, marketers today are still finding the balance between leveraging powerful new automation and demanding the transparency needed to do their jobs effectively.
The Beecommercer Team