Traffic from AI assistants to retail sites has grown 14-fold in 19 months

Before visiting a shop’s website, more and more people ask an AI assistant which product or provider to choose. Adobe measures the result on retail sites.

What Adobe measured

• Traffic from generative AI tools to US retail sites rose 1,324% between October 2024 and May 2026.
• To travel sites, it rose 2,215% over the same period.
• Over the 2025 holiday season, AI traffic to retail sites was 693% higher than a year earlier.

What it means for you

These visitors arrive with context: they have already described their need to an assistant and been pointed to you. They expect your site to confirm what they were told and answer the next question quickly.

• Make your key facts easy to find and quote: services, prices, area, opening hours.
• Keep the conversation going: a visitor used to asking questions will ask one on your site too.
• Track it: check your analytics for visits from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and other assistants.