As AI-driven shopping gains momentum, Trustpilot is reportedly in the process of partnering with major e-commerce companies.
In an interview with Bloomberg News (paywall), CEO Adrian Blair said AI agents acting on behalf of consumers need a lot of information about the companies they want to do business with. He said the most effective systems rely on data sets like the one Trustpilot has, adding that the company aims to work with major e-commerce sites to make more use of the data.
Trustpilot expects operating margins to reach 30% by 2030, with some of that improvement related to the use of content by LLMs. Traffic patterns are starting to reflect this, according to Bloomberg. Click-throughs from AI-based searches have increased by 1,490% over the past year. This is thanks in no small part to search giant Google’s decision to make AI search the default.
In January of this year, Trustpilot was ranked as the fifth most cited domain in the world on ChatGPT, according to data from Promptwatch.
Blair said the large-scale language model has created new channels for Trustpilot’s content to be presented, pointing to increased exposure and referral traffic from LLM-based algorithms.
In February 2026, Amazon and OpenAI announced an agreement to deploy the genAI system on AWS using a model customized for Amazon’s consumer applications. The deal is said to cover infrastructure provision and model development.
Elsewhere, a partnership between Walmart and Google will allow users to purchase items within the Gemini chatbot. Google has similar arrangements with Shopify and other retailers.
Shopify’s Universal Commerce Protocol allows AI agents to access product data and check out transactions, ensuring potential buyers stay on the AI platform (in this case, Gemini) rather than navigating to the retailer’s site. Microsoft’s Copilot Checkout and PayPal collaboration fits the same pattern.
Shopify is pursuing a similar partnership with Microsoft to enable sellers to sell from a chatbot interface. A recent product update describes an “agent storefront” where transactions occur within AI interactions. For marketing professionals, the loss of valuable data when shoppers make purchases through third-party agents is more or less balanced out by the revenue from transactions made through AI platforms.
Amazon is currently challenging third-party AI agents that gain unauthorized access to its platform, and is developing its own assistant to maintain control over user data and ad revenue, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Trustpilot’s Adrian Blair argued in an interview with Bloomberg News that user-generated reviews have value, regardless of whether AI is involved in the purchasing process. He said consumers would “continue to have an experience” with a company, noting that Trustpilot’s review dataset is a long-term asset and its relevance is increasing.
The company’s stock price was affected by a sharp decline in software stocks last month as media speculated that the SaaS platform might disappear in the wake of Anthropic’s claims.
PYMNTS Intelligence’s report (email wall), “How AI is the Place for Consumers to Start Everything,” explains that consumers are starting their product research and shopping on AI platforms, iteratively refining prompts rather than continuous “traditional” searches.
(Image source: “E-Commerce Visa (Test tamron 17-50 2.8)” by Fosforix is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.)
Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out the AI & Big Data Expos in Amsterdam, California, and London. This comprehensive event is part of TechEx and co-located with other major technology events. Click here for more information.
AI News is brought to you by TechForge Media. Learn about other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars.
