Etsy Focuses on ‘Harnessing AI’ as CEO Steps Aside

Etsy is continuing its focus on artificial intelligence (AI) as it names new leadership.

The online marketplace released earnings Wednesday (Oct. 29) showing gross merchandise sales of $2.72 billion, down 6.5% year over year.

The number of buyers and sellers on the platform dipped as well, at a respective 86.6 million (down 5%) and 5.5 million (down nearly 11%) year over year.

Etsy announced its earnings in tandem with a leadership change: Josh Silverman, the company’s chief executive, is stepping down after eight years. He will become Etsy’s executive chairman at the end of the year.

Taking his place will be Kruti Patel Goyal, Etsy’s president and chief growth officer, and former CEO of Depop.

“After over 8 years as Etsy’s CEO, I’ve decided that this is the right time for me to hand over the leadership baton to the next generation,” Silverman said. “It has been an honor to lead Etsy and help foster creativity and self-expression in a world increasingly shaped by automation. Kruti is fabulously talented, and is the right leader to guide the business forward.”

Speaking during an earnings call, Silverman expanded on the company’s push towards automation, noticing its recent partnership with OpenAI that lets users purchase items directly through ChatGPT, utilizing Etsy Payments.

The outgoing CEO said this digital strategy is key to the company’s new chapter, with Silverman telling analysts that Etsy “is entering a new phase, one focused on harnessing AI to further personalize and transform the shopping experience in ways that were previously unimaginable.”

Goyal said she is focusing on four strategic priorities aimed at delivering “robust sustainable growth,” including enhancing personalized discovery and strengthening buyer loyalty through efforts like the Etsy Insider Loyalty program beta.

Goyal acknowledged the momentum but remained cautious: “We are excited about the traction, but we’re far from satisfied with the growth that we’re seeing.”

Writing about OpenAI’s new integrations with platforms like Etsy on Wednesday, PYMNTS argued that these features mark a huge step in the convergence of discovery and payments.

“Rather than presenting a sea of links, ChatGPT surfaces a curated few,” that report said. “Visibility now shifts from search engine optimization and marketplace ads to AI optimization, structuring product and metadata to align with agent ranking logic.”

That gap calls to mind PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster’s warning that merchants not aligned with how AI agents rank and monetize risk becoming invisible.

As she put it: “If your product does not appear in an agent’s results, for a consumer it effectively does not exist.” That dynamic is now live, and it could fundamentally reconfigure how value flows in the commerce ecosystem.

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