As shoppers increasingly turn to ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini for product recommendations, retailers are racing to appear in chatbot results while resisting efforts to cede customer data that underpin online sales. Growing online traffic from AI platforms has pushed retailers including Walmart, Ulta Beauty and Wayfair to update their websites so their products rank highly in chatbot searches. Yet many want purchases to remain on their own websites, where they can collect data on browsing habits, basket sizes and past purchases. Shoppers are expected to spend $8 billion this year after AI agents such as Anthropic’s Claude and Gemini direct them to retail sites, according to Juniper Research. Adobe Analytics said 41 percent of US consumers used generative AI for online shopping in June and visitors referred by AI services generated 41 percent higher revenue per visit than shoppers arriving through traditional channels. Ulta is seeing "double the conversion and intent” from shoppers finding its products through Gemini and ChatGPT. The company is working with Google to incorporate shopping carts and its Ulta Beauty Rewards loyalty program into AI-powered shopping within Gemini. But Ulta’s head of digital and e-commerce, Josh Friedman, said the retailer would prefer customers complete transactions on Ulta’s website. Executives argue that retailers retain an edge because they know far more about customer preferences than general-purpose AI tools do. Vince Koh, global head of digital commerce at Amazon Web Services, said when a shopper completes a purchase on a brand’s own site, the retailer maintains