AI shoppers are arriving, and they buy more

By idealbusiness.ai team · Sources checked on 30 October 2026

More and more shoppers start with a question, not a search box. They ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot or Google's AI Overviews what to buy, then click through to a shop.

For most e-shops, the visitors these AI assistants send are still a small slice of traffic. But the best large-scale data we have says two things clearly: that slice is growing fast, and those visitors are unusually valuable.

What the data shows

The most detailed numbers come from Adobe, which analysed more than one trillion visits to US retail websites for its August 2026 AI Traffic Trends Report [1]. For July 2026, Adobe reports:

In plain terms: someone who arrives from an AI assistant has often already compared options in the conversation. They land closer to a decision, so they browse with purpose and buy more often.

How many shoppers use AI assistants?

Adobe's survey of more than 5,000 US consumers, run in July 2026, found that 42% had used AI assistants for online shopping, up from 39% in March [1]. Most of that use, 53%, happens at the very start of the journey: looking for inspiration and discovering products [1].

That second number matters. If AI assistants are where shopping journeys increasingly begin, the shops that appear in those first answers get the first look.

An honest caveat about Europe and Latin America

All of the figures above are from the United States. Adobe's report contains no data for Europe or any other region [1], and we are not aware of a comparable public measurement for markets such as Slovakia, Czechia, Germany, Spain or Mexico. We will not guess at those numbers.

What we can say is that the AI assistants themselves are widely available in these markets, and the direction of travel in the US is clear. For a shop owner, the sensible reading is: this channel is small today, it has been growing quickly where it is measured, and its visitors are valuable. That is usually a good moment to prepare, while preparing is still cheap.

Two steps: get found, then get used

They arrive at different speeds.

Get found in AI answers. Your shop and products are mentioned or cited when someone asks an AI assistant a question. You may hear it called GEO (generative engine optimisation) or AEO (answer engine optimisation). In practice it comes down to things AI assistants can read and trust: clear product pages, accurate prices and stock, structured product data (machine-readable labels that describe a product), sensible policies, and nothing that accidentally blocks AI crawlers. This step matters in every market today, because the AI assistants are already answering shopping questions everywhere.

Get used by AI agents. AI agents go one step further: they browse, compare and even complete a purchase for the user. For that, an agent needs a reliable product feed (a structured list of your products, prices and availability) and a way to check out. New standards are appearing for this, such as checkout protocols and MCP (Model Context Protocol, a standard way for AI agents to connect to a service).

This step is arriving market by market, and it is US-first today. OpenAI launched Instant Checkout in ChatGPT in September 2025 for US users, together with the Agentic Commerce Protocol, "an open standard for AI commerce that lets AI agents, people, and businesses work together to complete purchases" [3]. In March 2026 it changed course: merchants now use their own checkout, and ChatGPT focuses on product discovery fed by merchants' product data [4]. In October 2026 Google started rolling out Universal Cart in the US across Search and the Gemini app, with the merchant staying the seller [5]. In Europe, the agent-checkout step has not arrived yet; the discovery step has.

So the order is natural: get found now, because it pays off in every market and builds the foundation (clean data, clear pages) that agents also need. Then be ready for agent checkout as it reaches your platform and your country. And when AI visitors do arrive, make sure your shop turns them into orders.

What to do this quarter

  1. Look at your own numbers. In your analytics, check for referral visits from AI assistants such as chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com and copilot.microsoft.com. Even small numbers tell you whether the channel is starting to work for you.
  2. Ask the AI assistants yourself. Type the questions your customers would ask ("best running shoes under 100 euros in Slovakia") and see who gets mentioned.
  3. Fix the basics. Accurate product data, readable pages, clear shipping and returns information, and no accidental blocks for AI crawlers.
  4. Keep your product feed healthy. It helps you get found today and is the entry ticket for AI agents tomorrow.

None of this requires a big project. It is mostly housekeeping that also helps your human customers.

Not sure how to prepare, or need help adopting the latest AI practices? Get in touch: hello@idealbusiness.ai

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Sources

  1. "AI Traffic Trends Report", Adobe Digital Insights (Adobe), August 2026 (report dated 19 August 2026). https://business.adobe.com/assets/pdfs/resources/sdk/ai-traffic-trends-report-august-2026/ai-traffic-trends-report-2026-08-19.pdf
  2. Abbas Haleem, Digital Commerce 360 coverage of Adobe's AI-referral traffic data for July 2026, 19 August 2026. https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2026/08/19/adobe-ai-referral-traffic-data-july-2026/
  3. "Buy it in ChatGPT: Instant Checkout and the Agentic Commerce Protocol", OpenAI, 29 September 2025. https://openai.com/index/buy-it-in-chatgpt/
  4. "Powering product discovery in ChatGPT", OpenAI, 24 March 2026. https://openai.com/index/powering-product-discovery-in-chatgpt/
  5. "An intelligent new shopping cart" (Universal Cart), Suresh Ganapathy, Google (The Keyword), 15 October 2026. https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/shopping/universal-cart-launch/