By Blake Anderson, CFA®, Associate Portfolio Manager
Investors received concrete proof points that LLMs and chatbots are beginning to act as business generators, not just efficiency imperatives. What began as an internal productivity story is steadily evolving into a top-line growth narrative. Instead of merely reducing costs, AI interfaces are increasingly shaping customer discovery, influencing purchase intent, and improving conversion rates in measurable ways. The emerging question is no longer whether chatbots work, but how materially they can move revenue.
Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb, delivered one of the clearest articulations of how chatbots are beginning to drive revenue on the company’s latest earnings call, saying, “I think these chatbot platforms are going to be very similar to search. They’re going to be really good top-of-funnel discoveries…What we see is that traffic that comes from chatbots converts at a higher rate than traffic that comes from Google.”1
That anecdotal commentary is increasingly supported by third-party data. A study published by Vertu found similar efficacy in chatbots converting leads to sales, noting, “Publishers report that while AI referral traffic remains small compared to traditional search and social channels (typically under 1% of total traffic), these visitors demonstrate high engagement and conversion rates.”2 In other words, while AI-driven traffic may still be small in volume terms, its quality appears disproportionately strong. The implication for businesses is clear: even modest chatbot adoption could translate into outsized revenue impact if conversion performance holds.
This dynamic is not limited to digital-native organizations. Walmart CEO John Furner noted on the company’s most recent earnings call that “customers who use Sparky [Walmart’s AI-shopping assistant] have an average order value that’s about 35% higher than non-Sparky customers,”3 a striking data point from one of the world’s largest retailers. If accurate at scale, that level of uplift suggests AI-assisted shopping is not merely a convenience feature, but a basket-expansion engine. Higher receipts may imply better product discovery, more relevant recommendations, and potentially reduced friction during the purchase journey. For a company operating on thin margins but boasting massive volume, incremental increases in average order value may translate into billions of dollars in incremental revenue.
Taken together, these examples suggest that chatbots are beginning to function less like customer support tools and more like revenue-generating distribution channels. The pattern is consistent: lower funnel friction, higher engagement, and measurable increases in conversion or basket size. For investors and operators alike, the takeaway is straightforward — AI interfaces are moving from experimental to economically material.
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