Traffic to US retail sites from AI sources rose 393% in Q1 2026
The growth figure comes from Adobe and compares the quarter with the same period a year earlier. According to NRF and Salesforce data, meanwhile, 45% of online shoppers turn to AI assistants for product discovery, but fewer than 12% say they have completed a transaction from start to finish in a third-party chat interface.
What's happening
According to figures published by Adobe, traffic to US retail sites from AI sources rose 393% in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier. Adobe data reported by Digital Commerce 360 in June show that this traffic also rose 138% year over year in May. According to NRF and Salesforce data, meanwhile, 45% of online shoppers turn to AI assistants for product discovery, but fewer than 12% say they have completed a transaction from start to finish in a third-party chat interface.
Whose desk it lands on
E-commerce and digital marketing teams tracking traffic from AI sources; product managers designing the purchase experience in chat interfaces.
Our view
The CX Brief's interpretation, not a claim made by the source.
Adobe's figure is for the US and offers no comparison for Türkiye. Still, the gap between shoppers who turn to AI assistants for product discovery and those who say they have completed a transaction from start to finish in a third-party chat interface raises a question for retailers in Türkiye: Does a customer who searches for products with an assistant complete the purchase on the brand's site or in the chat interface? Tracking visits from AI sources separately from other channels could be a starting point for answering it.
Worth noting
The source article (CX Network) dates the 393% figure to Q1 2025. Adobe's own announcement and other outlets that reported the figure show that the increase came in Q1 2026; the text has been corrected accordingly.
