AI chat platforms increased their share of referral traffic to retail websites by nearly 269% in March 2026 compared with a year earlier, according to new Adobe data.
For the three month period January to March 2026, AI referral traffic increased 393% year over year, Adobe finds. Adobe’s estimates are based on analysis of 1 trillion web visits to U.S. retailers and direct online transactions.
One reason the traffic could be increasing is because retailers are making their websites legible to AI. Adobe’s diagnostic tool “AI Content Visibility Checker” found AI could read 75% of the content on a retailer’s homepage, meaning it couldn’t read 25% of it. The score reflects the proportion of content that is visible to AI, indicating how likely a page is to be interpreted and cited in AI-generated responses.
Here’s how each page or content section of a retailer’s website stacked up:
- Returns/exchanges — AI could read 82% of the page’s content on average across all retailers
- Contact us — 81% of the page’s content
- FAQ — 80%
- Customer service/help center — 79%
- Loyalty/membership — 78%
- Category-level pages such as appliances or men’s apparel — 74%
- Store locator — 73%
- Individual Product Pages — 66%
In short, AI was more likely to read pages with clear policies, but was likely to read all of the content on a product page.
AI models favor content that is structured, complete and content rich, while missing information or poor organization can limit visibility, according to Adobe.
Retailers Need to Keep Pace with AI Consumer Adoption
Retailers have a good foundation, Adobe said, but need to continue updating their sites as consumer adoption of AI tools continues to increase.
“Businesses need to ensure their digital front doors are optimized for AI to remain relevant in today’s environment,” Adobe said in a press release.
Having an AI-optimized website has its benefits, as shoppers who are coming from an AI chat platform are more engaged and more likely to buy than non-AI traffic.
Shoppers from an AI platform spend 48% longer on the retail website compared with non-AI traffic, and browse 13% more pages per visit, according to Adobe’s March 2026 data. Plus, traffic from AI bounces 17-20% of the time, compared with 27% for non-AI traffic.
And most notably traffic from AI converted 42% more than non-AI traffic.
Adobe attributes increasing consumer trust of AI as the reason why, which gives shoppers confidence.
In an Adobe survey of 5,000 U.S. consumers in March 2026, 66% of consumers say AI tools provide accurate results.
AI Chat Agents Deliver Read-To-Buy Shoppers
At 39%, nearly two in five consumers say they have used AI before for online shopping, with 85% of them saying it improved their experience, according to Adobe.
New data from Criteo also finds that AI-referral traffic is delivering a valuable shopper to retailers.
It found that an AI-referred consumer had a 1.5X higher conversion rate than other referring channels. The higher conversion could be because more than 70% of these consumers landed directly on a product page, up from just 50% in mid-2025.
Criteo’s data is based on an analysis of inbound traffic sources from a sample of 500 U.S. Criteo merchants between January-February 2026.
