ChatGPT links to Amazon in 0.1% of its answers to "what is the best..." shopping questions, four answers in 4,000, while Perplexity links to Amazon in 17.4%. Across five AI engines, 5.5% of shopping answers link to Amazon.
Analysis of 17,524 AI answers to 2,000 "best product" and "best service" questions · answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI features, September 2026
Key Findings
- 1.ChatGPT links to Amazon in 0.1% of its answers to "what is the best..." shopping questions, and Gemini in none of them.
- 2.Perplexity links to Amazon in 17.4% of its shopping answers and Google AI Overviews in 12.4%, the only two AI engines that send shoppers to Amazon regularly.
- 3.5.5% of AI answers to "what is the best..." shopping questions link to Amazon across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI features.
- 4.In physical-product categories, 8.2% of AI shopping answers link to Amazon, since answers about insurance, banking, software and travel never do.
- 5.24.3% of AI answers about the best health products link to Amazon, against 1.2% of AI answers about the best electronics.
Summary
A shopper asks an AI assistant for the best vitamin D supplement. On Perplexity, there is a fair chance the answer links straight to an Amazon listing. Ask ChatGPT the same question and the links point somewhere else, often to a product card for Walmart or Target.
AI assistants are becoming the first stop for buying research, and the links in their answers decide which store a shopper visits next. The common assumption is that those links mostly go to Amazon. For a brand or retailer, knowing where each assistant actually sends people shows where product listings, prices and reviews need to be strongest.
The assumption does not hold. ChatGPT links to Amazon in 0.1% of its shopping answers, and Gemini never does. Perplexity links to Amazon in 17.4% of answers and Google AI Overviews in 12.4%, and across all five engines the rate is 5.5%.
What we measured
On September 23, 2026 we asked five AI engines, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews (the AI summary shown above Google's search results), 2,000 questions of the form "What is the best [product or service]?". The questions covered 20 categories, 13 of them physical products such as health, beauty, electronics and pets, and the rest services such as insurance, banking, software and travel. That produced 17,524 answers.
For every answer we recorded each link the engine showed, including the links on ChatGPT's product cards, the shopping tiles it shows with prices and stores. An answer counts as linking to Amazon when at least one of its links goes to an Amazon website. Every rate in this study is a share of answers, so an answer with three Amazon links counts once.
Two engines send shoppers to Amazon, three rarely do
Behind that average are two very different groups. Perplexity links to Amazon in 17.4% of its answers and Google AI Overviews in 12.4%. Google AI Mode drops to 4.5%, ChatGPT to 0.1%, four answers in 4,000, and Gemini to zero.
Source: Suff Digital analysis of 17,524 AI answers to 2,000 "best product" and "best service" questions · answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI features, September 2026
ChatGPT still sends shoppers to stores, just not to Amazon. Its product cards link to retailers such as Walmart, Best Buy and Target far more often. So the store a shopper ends up at depends heavily on which assistant they asked, and a brand that sells only through Amazon is missing from most of the links ChatGPT shows.
Health and beauty answers lean on Amazon
The 5.5% average includes service categories where Amazon has nothing to sell: insurance, finance, software and travel answers link to Amazon 0% of the time. Across the 13 physical-product categories, the rate is 8.2%.
Source: Suff Digital analysis of 17,524 AI answers to 2,000 "best product" and "best service" questions · answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI features, September 2026
Health answers link to Amazon 24.3% of the time and beauty answers 17.2%, followed by pets at 10.7%. These are categories full of small brands whose main store is an Amazon listing, so Amazon is often the most direct place to buy the product an AI engine names. Electronics (1.2%), apparel (1.6%) and gaming (2.8%) sit at the bottom, where AI engines point to specialist retailers such as Best Buy and Dick's Sporting Goods, or to the brand's own store.
Perplexity is the Amazon engine
Perplexity links to Amazon in 17.4% of all its shopping answers, and far more often in some categories. 60% of its answers about kids' products link to Amazon, as do 42% of its health answers and 35% of its office, kitchen and outdoor answers. Even 21% of its streaming answers carry an Amazon link.
Among retailer links alone, Amazon takes 34% of Perplexity's and 47.8% of Google AI Overviews'. On ChatGPT, whose product cards make it the biggest source of retailer links overall, Walmart, Best Buy and Target lead instead. For Amazon sellers, Perplexity and Google are where AI visibility turns into clicks to their listings. Our study of which retailers AI shopping answers link to ranks Walmart, Best Buy, Amazon and Target by engine and by category.
What this means for ecommerce brands
If you sell mainly through Amazon, your AI visibility runs through Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews. Keep your Amazon listings complete, with clear titles, specifications and a steady flow of reviews, because those are the pages those engines link to. Health, beauty and pet brands have the most to gain, since their categories send the most AI links to Amazon.
For ChatGPT, Amazon barely matters. Its product cards draw on retailers such as Walmart, Best Buy and Target, so being stocked and well reviewed there, or on your own store with accurate product data, decides whether ChatGPT can send a shopper to you. Electronics and apparel brands should look at the specialist retailers AI engines link to in their category. Our ecommerce seo services track where AI answers send shoppers for your products.
Need help with this? See our AI SEO services.
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<p style="font:14px/1.5 system-ui,sans-serif">Source: <a href="https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/ai-shopping-answers-link-amazon">ChatGPT Links to Amazon in 0.1% of Shopping Answers vs 17.4% for Perplexity - Suff Digital</a></p>
Cite this study
Suff Digital. (2026). ChatGPT Links to Amazon in 0.1% of Shopping Answers vs 17.4% for Perplexity. https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/ai-shopping-answers-link-amazon
ChatGPT Links to Amazon in 0.1% of Shopping Answers vs 17.4% for Perplexity - Suff Digital - https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/ai-shopping-answers-link-amazon
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