AI traffic to US retailers rose 393% in Q1, and it’s boosting their revenue too

As of March, AI traffic to U.S. retailers’ websites rose by 269% over the previous 12 months, continuing the momentum during the holiday shopping season when AI traffic was up by 693%, according to new data released on Thursday by Adobe.

And in the first three months of 2026, AI traffic had risen 393% compared to a year earlier, as more consumers used AI assistants for online shopping.

The change in traffic sources isn’t the only impact. AI visitors are converting better, engaging at higher rates, spending more time on sites, and driving higher revenue per visit, the data shows, often reversing trends from only a year ago, when regular customers were worth more to retailers.

Adobe’s insights are based on its analysis of online transactions, via its Adobe Analytics division, which covers over 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites. The analysis also relied on a survey of over 5,000 U.S. respondents about their use of AI when shopping, as well as the company’s new AI Content Visibility Checker tool, designed to test retail websites for accessibility by LLMs.

In Adobe’s survey, 39% people said they used AI for online shopping, and 85% said it improved their experience. These findings are likely due to how AI helps people narrow down products to find what they need, and tap into discounts. In addition, 66% of those surveyed said they now believe AI tools provide accurate results when shopping.

Unlike publishers, where AI is causing referral traffic to decline, retailers are incentivized to make their sites AI-friendly.

Adobe’s data found that AI traffic converted 42% better than living, breathing customers in March 2026, setting a new record. Notably, it’s a reversal of a trend that told a different story only a year ago: In March 2025, AI traffic converted 38% worse than regular people.

In addition, Adobe found that when a consumer lands on a retail site via an AI source, their engagement rate tends 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 top line, AI-driven revenue per visit (RPV) was 37% higher than non-AI traffic as of March. Just 12 months ago, regular human traffic was worth 128% more than AI.

However, not all sites are ready for AI, Adobe warned. It found that roughly a quarter of the content on retailers’ homepages has not been optimized for LLMs, nor has the content on category pages. Individual product pages fare even worse: around 34% of pages can’t be properly accessed by AI.

The company suggests that retailers work to make their sites more accessible to LLMs if they want to stay top-of-mind with online shoppers going forward.