General equilibrium effects of industry-wide GenAI adoption in online retail

Determine the general equilibrium effects of industry-wide adoption of Generative Artificial Intelligence across competing online retail platforms, including how competitive dynamics influence revenue-based productivity and whether the short-run sales and conversion gains from platform-level GenAI deployments persist over time.

Background

The paper presents large-scale randomized field experiments on a global cross-border e-commerce platform, integrating Generative AI into seven consumer-facing workflows (e.g., customer service chatbots, search query refinement, product descriptions, and marketing messages). With inputs and prices held constant, observed sales gains are interpreted as total factor productivity improvements.

While the paper documents sizable short-run productivity effects and identifies demand-side mechanisms (higher conversion rates and improved consumer experience), the experiments are confined to a single platform and abstract from competitive responses. The authors therefore emphasize that the broader, industry-wide implications in general equilibrium—how competitive dynamics might alter or erode gains, and whether the observed improvements endure—remain unresolved.