The short version
- AI is a small but high-intent channel for marketplaces today: Etsy, with about 87 million active buyers, said in August 2026 that traffic from AI shopping experiences was below 1% of its total (opens in a new tab) but showed higher intent and higher average order value.
- AI shoppers convert: Adobe found AI traffic to US retailers rose 393% in the first quarter of 2026 and converted 42% better (opens in a new tab) than other traffic in March.
- Marketplaces are moving inside the assistants: Etsy sellers were the first on ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout (opens in a new tab), which OpenAI scaled back in March 2026, according to FashionUnited (opens in a new tab), and Upwork’s app in ChatGPT (opens in a new tab) lets businesses search a pool of more than 18 million professionals.
- Marketplace pages matter most when people are ready to buy: in our AI Overview study, marketplaces and retailers were 1.5% of all citations but 7.9% on transactional searches.
- Trust answers come from review sites: in our reputation study, 88.0% of answers to “is this brand legit?” cited a review or complaint platform.
How does a marketplace make money, and why do both sides matter?
A marketplace earns a cut of every transaction, so it grows only when buyers and sellers keep finding each other.
Andreessen Horowitz’s marketplace glossary (opens in a new tab) defines the core economics plainly. The take rate is “the percentage of the gross merchandise value (GMV) captured by the marketplace.” Liquidity, “the likelihood that a seller is able to find a buyer, or that a buyer is able to find the product or service they’re looking for,” is called the most critical aspect: “Most marketplaces fail because they never reach or maintain liquidity.”
Public results show what is at stake:
| Marketplace | Latest public figure | What it means for AI visibility |
|---|---|---|
| Etsy | $2.6 billion in quarterly sales, take rate of 25.9%, about 87 million active buyers | Each new buyer is worth roughly $124 a year in sales at the current average |
| Airbnb | $27.2B in quarterly gross booking value | Guests and hosts both research the platform before committing |
| Upwork | More than $30 billion in total transactions since founding | Clients and freelancers each choose a platform before work starts |
Etsy’s trailing 12-month sales per active buyer rose 2.8% to $124 in the second quarter of 2026. At a take rate near 26%, every buyer an AI answer sends who becomes a regular adds revenue for years.
The supply side matters as much. Airbnb’s second-quarter 2026 letter says more than 150,000 homes across World Cup host cities were listed on Airbnb for the first time, and it grew its Experiences supply by nearly 80% year over year. Every marketplace runs a constant campaign to recruit sellers, hosts or freelancers, and those people research their options too.
Where do AI assistants already sit in marketplace journeys?
At the start of both journeys, and increasingly inside the assistant, where the transaction can begin without a website visit.
On the buyer side, the shift is visible in retail data. In Adobe’s survey, reported by TechCrunch, 39% of US consumers said they used AI for online shopping. AI-driven revenue per visit was 37% higher than for other traffic in March 2026, a reversal from a year earlier.
The assistants are also becoming storefronts:
- Product marketplaces. OpenAI launched Instant Checkout so that US ChatGPT users “can now buy directly from U.S. Etsy sellers right in chat.” OpenAI says more than 700 million people use ChatGPT each week. Accounts of what happened next differ: Reuters, via Zawya (opens in a new tab), reported that OpenAI ended Instant Checkout in March 2026 and is helping marketplaces such as Etsy use their own checkouts, FashionUnited says the feature was scaled back, and OpenAI’s help page still describes it for some eligible merchants.
- Travel and property. Booking.com, Expedia and Zillow were among the first apps inside ChatGPT, according to Tom’s Guide (opens in a new tab), with Thumbtack, TripAdvisor and others announced to follow.
- Talent and services. Upwork’s ChatGPT app lets businesses describe a project, find talent across 130 categories of work and draft a job post, then finish hiring on Upwork itself.
Marketplace leaders describe the channel as small but promising. Etsy said its AI traffic converts with higher intent. eBay’s chief executive said in 2025 that agentic commerce was a small part of the business but “it has a nice growth rate (opens in a new tab).”
What do buyers and sellers ask AI about marketplaces?
Buyers ask where to find something and whether a seller is safe; sellers ask where they will earn most. The prompts below are illustrative, written by us, not observed data.
| Side | Illustrative prompt | What the answer decides |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer | “Where can I buy a handmade wedding guest book with custom names?” | Which marketplace or shop gets the visit |
| Buyer | “Is it safe to buy a used designer bag online, and which sites authenticate?” | Which platforms are trusted for the category |
| Buyer | “Find me a plumber who can come tomorrow morning” | Which services marketplace or app is used |
| Seller | “Best place to sell vintage clothing online: Etsy, eBay or Depop?” | Which platform gets the new seller |
| Seller | “Etsy fees vs selling on my own Shopify store” | Whether the seller joins a marketplace at all |
| Host | “Is it worth listing my apartment on Airbnb during a big event?” | Whether new supply arrives |
| Freelancer | “Upwork or Fiverr for a new web developer?” | Which talent pool grows |
The seller questions are the ones most marketplaces overlook. A marketplace usually tracks its buyer search terms closely. Few, we infer, check what an assistant says about their fees, payout speed, seller protection or audience when a would-be seller compares platforms. A seller who opts for their own store instead moves on to a related question: how a new business chooses a payment provider.
How does an AI answer become marketplace revenue?
Through a new buyer who keeps buying, or a new seller whose listings make the marketplace more useful for everyone.
The buyer path. A shopper asks a question, the answer names a marketplace or a listing, the shopper clicks or checks out in the assistant, and the marketplace takes its share. For a repeat buyer, the value compounds: at Etsy, $124 a year in sales per active buyer.
The seller path. A would-be seller asks where to list, the answer compares platforms, the seller signs up, lists inventory and, ideally, makes a first sale soon. Each new seller adds choice, which in a two-sided market makes the platform more valuable to buyers. The a16z glossary calls this the two-sided network effect: the network “becomes more valuable as the number of users on the other side of the marketplace increases.”
The in-assistant path. When the purchase or booking starts inside ChatGPT, as it could with Instant Checkout and can with the Upwork app, the marketplace may never get the first visit. The transaction still flows through it, but the assistant controls the first impression.
We suggest measuring AI visibility on both sides: buyer sessions and orders from AI sources, and seller or host sign-ups that name an AI assistant in an onboarding survey.
What decides whether an assistant names your marketplace or a listing on it?
Partly documented rules, partly observed patterns, and partly inference; the platforms publish little about choosing between marketplaces.
Documented by OpenAI. In its shopping help page (opens in a new tab), OpenAI says merchants for a product “are ranked based on factors like availability, price, quality, and whether they are the maker or primary seller of that item.” That last factor matters for marketplaces: when a product is also sold on the maker’s own site, ChatGPT may favor the maker, not the platform listing it. Google says its AI features can run several related searches (opens in a new tab) before answering.
Observed in studies.
- Marketplaces earn more citations when the question is about buying. In our frequency study, their share rose from 1.5% of all AI Overview citations to 7.9% on transactional searches.
- In product questions, Uberti-Bona Marin and colleagues (opens in a new tab) found retailers and marketplaces supplied 17.8% of the sources Google’s AI Overviews displayed. The same study found ChatGPT and Gemini interfaces shared only 5.4% of domains on average for the same question, so visibility in one assistant says little about another.
- Reputation answers lean on review sites. In our reputation study, Trustpilot and the BBB accounted for 61.7% of review-platform citations. A marketplace’s buyer-protection record and complaint handling are part of that public record.
Our inference. Assistants can only describe what they can read. A marketplace whose category pages, seller fee pages and trust policies are clear, crawlable and consistent with third-party coverage gives the assistant something accurate to repeat. Adobe also warned that around 34% of retail product pages cannot be properly accessed by AI; listing pages built only with scripts risk the same.
What does GEO look like for a two-sided marketplace?
Generative engine optimization (GEO) for a marketplace runs two programs at once: one for buyers, one for supply.
For buyers:
- Category answers, not just category grids. Pages that explain what to look for, price ranges and how your sellers differ, so an assistant can cite them for “where to buy” questions. Guidance on product content is in what kind of product content AI shopping assistants prefer.
- Readable listings. Listing and category pages that load without scripts, with structured product, price and availability data.
- Trust in public. Buyer protection, returns, authentication and dispute rules stated plainly, plus active work on Trustpilot and BBB profiles.
For sellers, hosts or freelancers:
- Plain seller economics. Fees, payout timing, audience size and seller protection on public pages, so comparisons in AI answers are accurate.
- Third-party comparisons. Coverage in the guides and communities sellers trust when they compare platforms, starting with the best-of lists AI answers draw on.
- Proof of earnings. Named seller stories and published marketplace statistics that writers and assistants can quote.
Across both sides: consistent facts about your brand, presence in assistant app directories where your category is offered, and regular checks of how each assistant describes you. No one can guarantee an assistant will recommend a marketplace; GEO makes accurate, favorable evidence easier to find. The same shift looks different from the brand side; will AI search reduce our dependence on marketplaces and aggregators? covers sellers hoping to rely on you less.
What does the evidence not tell marketplaces yet?
It shows AI shoppers convert well; it does not show AI answers recruit sellers, or how assistants choose between marketplaces.
- Seller-side evidence is missing. We found no public data on how many sellers, hosts or freelancers choose a platform after asking an assistant.
- Retail data is not marketplace data. Adobe’s figures cover US retail sites in general; Etsy’s and eBay’s comments are the only marketplace-specific signals we found, and both describe a small channel.
- In-assistant sales may hide the source. When checkout happens inside ChatGPT, standard analytics may not show where the buyer started.
- Answers vary. With only 5.4% of displayed domains shared between ChatGPT and Gemini, one snapshot from one assistant is not a measurement, for reasons laid out in why AI answers about a brand keep changing.
Where should a marketplace start?
Start by asking the assistants your buyers’ and your sellers’ questions, and compare what they say with your own facts.
A useful first check covers both sides: where-to-buy questions in your strongest categories, trust questions about buying on your platform, and the seller questions a new host or freelancer would ask before choosing you or a rival. It shows whether you are named, which competitors and sources appear instead, and whether your fees and protections are described correctly.
If your growth depends on new buyers and on steady new supply, talk to us about checking both sides of your marketplace. We will map how assistants describe your marketplace to buyers and to sellers, show where rivals or makers’ own sites take the answer, and plan the content, coverage and reputation work to close those gaps on both sides. How we run that work for shoppers and for sellers, hosts or freelancers is laid out on our generative engine optimization service page.
Frequently asked questions
Do AI assistants send real buyers to marketplaces yet?
Yes, but few so far. Etsy said in August 2026 that AI shopping traffic was below 1% of its total, with higher intent and higher average order value than average.
Can ChatGPT send a buyer to a maker instead of our marketplace?
It can. OpenAI says ChatGPT ranks merchants partly on “whether they are the maker or primary seller” of an item, so a maker’s own store can appear ahead of a marketplace listing.
Should a marketplace build an app inside ChatGPT?
It depends on the category. Booking.com, Expedia, Zillow and Upwork have, but an app does not replace being named in ordinary answers, where most questions start.
Why should sellers’ questions matter to a marketplace’s growth team?
Because supply drives liquidity. If assistants misstate your fees or audience when a seller compares platforms, you lose supply that would have made the marketplace better for buyers.
Sources
- Andreessen Horowitz (2020-02-18), The Marketplace Glossary (opens in a new tab)
- The Cerbat Gem (2026-08-09), Etsy Q2 Earnings Call Highlights (opens in a new tab)
- Airbnb (2026-08-06), Q2 2026 Shareholder Letter
- Upwork, via GlobeNewswire (2026-04-09), Upwork’s Work Marketplace Comes to ChatGPT (opens in a new tab)
- TechCrunch (2026-04-16), AI traffic to US retailers rose 393% in Q1, and it’s boosting their revenue too (opens in a new tab)
- OpenAI (2025-09-29), Buy it in ChatGPT: Instant Checkout and the Agentic Commerce Protocol (opens in a new tab)
- Reuters, via Zawya (2026), Retailers tap AI shopping traffic but fight to keep customer data (opens in a new tab)
- FashionUnited (2026-09-29), US consumers would let AI agents buy clothes, but not without a say (opens in a new tab)
- OpenAI Help Center (2026), Shopping with ChatGPT Search (opens in a new tab)
- Tom’s Guide (2025-10), You can now use apps inside ChatGPT, including Spotify, Canva and Zillow (opens in a new tab)
- Retail Dive (2025-08-06), eBay CEO: AI “continues to fundamentally change” customer experience (opens in a new tab)
- Google Search Central (2025), AI features and your website (opens in a new tab)
- Uberti-Bona Marin and colleagues (2026), "If I Had to Buy Just ONE: Galaxy S26 Ultra": Auditing AI-Generated Product Recommendations (opens in a new tab)
- Underneath (2026), When does Google show an AI Overview?
- Underneath (2026), “Is this brand legit?” How AI assistants build a reputation