The Review Economy Just Became the Recommendation Economy

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become the shopper’s de facto research assistant, reading Amazon and Google reviews, Reddit threads and YouTube videos before anyone opens a single tab, then handing back one synthesized answer. The platforms that built their businesses on hosting those reviews have the most to lose: AI decides which of their content reaches a buyer and which gets ignored.

Google moved first. In May, the company updated AI Overviews and AI Mode to surface a new “Expert Advice” section that displays perspectives pulled directly from Reddit, online forums and social media alongside AI-generated summaries. When a user asks a product question, AI Mode can now surface a Reddit quote with a subreddit name attached above the links, TechCrunch reported. That access is not free. Google already pays Reddit approximately $60 million annually under a data licensing deal to access its content. The Expert Advice feature extends that arrangement by placing Reddit’s community discussions inside Google’s AI answer layer, where a buyer may never need to click through to Reddit itself.

Reddit Added a Buy Button and Yelp Built a Booking Agent

Reddit is not waiting to be summarized. In February, the platform began testing an AI-powered shopping experience inside its own search that surfaces product carousels with pricing, images and direct purchase links drawn from community discussions, according to the company’s blog post. The experience is live for a limited group of U.S. users and focused on Electronics, Video Games and Health and Beauty categories. “Reading honest, real-world experiences is now a more important factor in the purchase decision than reviews from professional critics or influencers,” Jen Wong, Reddit’s chief operating officer, said at Cannes Lions 2026, TechWyse reported. Reddit’s own numbers back that up. According to Reddit, 71% of surveyed users said they used the platform during the consideration phase of a purchase journey.

Yelp is making a similar bet: it launched Yelp Assistant in April, an AI chatbot that reads across its 330 million local business reviews and surfaces tailored recommendations with explanations of why each business fits the user’s request, the company announced. The assistant is integrated with DoorDash, Grubhub, Vagaro, ZocDoc and RepairPal, letting users place orders, book appointments and schedule repairs directly within the app. “This chatbot can really understand 500 reviews in a second whereas a consumer might say, “Well, I read the first five reviews, so I guess that’s good enough,” CEO Jeremy Stoppelman told the Associated Press. The stakes are clear. Yelp depends on Google for more than 70% of its U.S. web traffic. The AI assistant is a direct bet that Yelp can build a discovery layer that does not require Google to send someone to its site first.

The Platform That Controls the AI Recommendation Controls the Sale

The tension between these three platforms is not incidental. Google’s Expert Advice feature takes Reddit’s community content and surfaces it inside Google’s AI answer, reducing the reason for a shopper to click through to Reddit. Yelp’s version of that arrangement didn’t survive. Google’s earlier data licensing deal with Yelp collapsed after Google began summarizing restaurant recommendations in ways that gave consumers less reason to visit Yelp, the Associated Press reported. Yelp has accused Google of improperly using its business reviews and favoring its own services. Both Reddit and Yelp are building their own AI recommendation layers in direct response: if the AI answer is the last stop before a purchase, whoever controls that answer controls the sale.

The numbers show why the stakes are so high. PYMNTS Intelligence found that 48% of online shoppers used AI during their most recent purchase. AI-referred traffic to U.S. retail sites grew 393% year over year in the first quarter of 2026. ChatGPT’s share of product research climbed from 2% to 30% in two years, PYMNTS Intelligence showed. The platforms hosting the reviews that trained those models are now racing to ensure the AI synthesizing their content is their own.

For all PYMNTS AI and digital transformation coverage, subscribe to the daily AI and Digital Transformation Newsletters .