- 1Chen: conversion rates on LLM referral traffic are much higher and growing rapidly
- 2LLM traffic does not fully offset NerdWallet's 2025 organic search losses
- 3Licensing rules for credit, insurance, mortgages and investing limit AI agents
NerdWallet CEO Tim Chen said on the company's Q4 earnings call that LLM referral traffic converts at much higher rates than other traffic and is growing rapidly. “People, I think, are searching more both on traditional search engines as well as LLMs,” he said.
Offsetting a search hit
NerdWallet took a hit on organic search traffic through 2025 as search engines like Google changed organic layouts and rankings. It made up for the lost business with a mix of paid marketing and AI referrals. LLM traffic is not large enough to replace the lost organic volume, but those referrals are said to convert far better.
Why regulation limits AI shopping
Chen does not expect LLMs to take over the entire shopping experience, because of existing rules. He said any scenario involving agentic shopping or deeper LLM integration faces two obstacles. The first is regulatory. As an example, no one can issue an insurance quote without an insurance license. Across credit, insurance, mortgages and investing, he said, licensing applies, and institutions need deterministic, compliant outputs rather than probabilistic answers.
NerdWallet connects consumers and small businesses with financial products.
Source reporting: deBanked.
