Traffic from artificial intelligence (AI) sources to U.S. ecommerce websites more than doubled year over year in May 2026, according to data from Adobe Analytics.
It found that AI-referred traffic to retail sites grew 138% year over year in May 2026. In addition, AI-referred traffic to those sites has grown 1,324% (more than 14x growth) since October 2024, when Adobe first started tracking such referrals.
Adobe said it based its findings on more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites.
More than 200 online retailers in the Top 2000 use Adobe Analytics for their web analytics, and more than 100 use it for site design and development. Top 1000 online retailers also use it for content delivery and management, as an ecommerce platform, a marketing platform, for personalization and more.
The over 200 retailers using Adobe for web analytics combined for about $836.44 billion in 2025 ecommerce sales, Digital Commerce 360 data shows.
Digital Commerce 360 featured AI Commerce Rankings in the 2026 edition of the Top 1000 Report. It shows how AI channels have become a new source of growth for online retailers. Furthermore, the report highlights which retailers are outperforming their peers when it comes to accessibility through AI platforms.
AI-referred traffic drives increase in engagement for retail websites
“Even without a seasonal lift, AI-driven retail traffic reached a new peak in May, surpassing every month in 2025 and signaling a sustained change in how consumers discover and engage with brands,” according to Adobe.
It found that traffic from AI sources to retail sites converted at a rate 54% better than traffic from non-AI sources. That represents a reversal from last year, Adobe said. At that time, conversion rates from AI sources were nearly half as much as those from non-AI sources.
Consumers were 15% more engaged on retail websites once they arrived from AI referrals, Adobe said. That’s the largest difference in engagement compared to non-AI sources since Adobe began tracking such metrics in October 2024.
More specifically, Adobe found that shoppers spend 53% more time on retailers’ websites when they arrive from an AI referral. They also browse 23% more pages per visit, which is about double the rate Adobe observed in its data from March 2026.
Which retail categories benefited most from AI-referred traffic in early 2026?
Adobe also assessed how easily AI can “read” the content on retailers’ websites. It uses its AI Content Visibility Checker, a diagnostic tool it unveiled last year. The tool analyzes any web page, identifies what large language models (LLMs) can or cannot read, and assigns a score out of 100%. If a webpage receives a score of 50%, Adobe said, that means half of its content is not machine-readable.
It found that cosmetics and electronics led in overall AI readability in May. That meant they had AI-friendly content, including:
- Ingredient lists
- Tutorials
- Product specifications
- How-to guides
- Customer service pages
Adobe found that the cosmetics sites were 63% readable — 56% for electronics. Sporting goods and apparel (51% each) fell in the middle of Adobe’s readability rankings.
By comparison, grocery (48%) and furniture and home (47%) retailers fell behind, Adobe found. It said those categories face “structural challenges in page design that suppress AI citation.”
Retail site AI readability by page type
When it came to content and category pages, the cosmetics category led in AI readability. 78% of blog and news pages in the cosmetics category were AI-readable, Adobe said. For category and department pages, that was slightly lower at 71%.
In terms of customer support pages, the apparel category joined cosmetics in having the most AI-readable content. Apparel homepages were 62% readable, while cosmetics customer service and help were 60% readable.
Although lagging overall, according to an Adobe assessment, the grocery category featured 70% AI-readable product detail pages.
Adobe said its latest data set indicates AI traffic to U.S. retail sites is growing in terms of both volume and value. Despite these sites having a solid foundation in terms of AI visibility, Adobe said, there are still “meaningful content gaps.”
It said top-performing sectors (without specifying which ones) “have high-value pages where 30 to 40% of content is still overlooked or uncaptured by AI. As consumer adoption of AI tools accelerates, brands must ensure their digital presence is not only engaging for humans, but fully accessible to machines as well.”
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