AI traffic to US retailers rose 393% in the first quarter, boosting their revenue as well

As of March, AI traffic to U.S. retailers’ sites had risen 269% over the past 12 months, continuing momentum through the holiday shopping season when AI traffic rose 693%, according to new data released Thursday by Adobe.

In the first three months of 2026, AI traffic rose 393% compared to the previous year, as more consumers used AI assistants to shop online.

The change in traffic sources is not the only impact. Data shows that AI visitors convert better, engage at higher rates, spend more time on sites, and generate higher revenue per visit, often mirroring trends of just a year ago, when regular customers were worth more to retailers.

Adobe Insights is based on its analysis of online transactions, through Adobe Analytics, covering more than one trillion visits to retail sites in the United States. The analysis also relied on a survey of more than 5,000 US respondents about their use of AI when shopping, as well as the company’s new AI Content Visibility Checker tool, designed to test retail sites for accessibility by LLMs.

In the Adobe survey, 39% of people said they had used AI to shop online, and 85% said it had improved their experience. These results are likely due to how AI helps people narrow down products to find what they need and take advantage of discounts. Additionally, 66% of those surveyed said they now believe AI tools provide accurate results when shopping.

Unlike publishers, where AI causes referral traffic to decreaseretailers are incentivized to make their sites AI-friendly.

Adobe data found that AI traffic converted 42% better than living, breathing customers in March 2026, a new record. Notably, this represents a reversal of a trend that was telling a different story just a year ago: in March 2025, AI traffic converted 38% worse than regular people.

Additionally, Adobe found that when a consumer arrived at a retail site via an AI source, their engagement rate tended to be 12% higher than those who used non-AI sources. Shoppers also spend more time on the website (48% longer) and browse more pages (13% more pages per visit), the data shows.

In terms of the bottom line, revenue per AI-driven visit (RPV) was 37% higher than non-AI-driven traffic as of March. Just 12 months ago, regular human traffic was worth 128% more than AI.

However, Adobe cautioned that not all sites are AI-ready. It found that nearly a quarter of the content on retailers’ homepages was not optimized for LLM degrees, and none on category pages. Individual product pages are even worse: about 34% of pages cannot be properly accessed by AI.

The company suggests that retailers make their sites more accessible to LLM administrators if they want to remain top of mind for online shoppers in the future.