AI in E-commerce Statistics 2026: Traffic, Sales and Fraud

AI-driven retail traffic grew 62% year over year in July 2026 on US retail sites, according to Adobe Digital Insights. In July 2026, AI-referred retail visitors converted at a rate 60% higher than non-AI traffic, and a year before March 2026, AI-referred visitors converted at nearly half the rate of non-AI traffic. These AI in e-commerce statistics track how that visitor, who converted worse than other traffic in early 2025, now converts better than it.

That traffic lands in a large channel: US retail e-commerce sales for the second quarter of 2026 were $340.2 billion, adjusted for seasonal variation, and e-commerce sales accounted for 17.1% of total sales, per the U.S. Census Bureau. Everything below covers AI in ecommerce, meaning online stores and marketplaces, and leaves AI inside physical stores aside.

Key Takeaways

• AI-referred retail visitors generated 53% more revenue per visit than non-AI traffic in July 2026, while twelve months prior, non-AI visits were worth 128% more than AI visits.
• AI-driven retail traffic grew 393% year over year in the first quarter of 2026, after a holiday peak of 1,151% in December, slowing to 62% growth in July 2026 as the base grew.
• According to the July 2026 Adobe Consumer Survey, 42% of consumers have used AI assistants for online shopping, yet only one-third of shoppers say they trusted an AI agent to buy on their behalf in Shopify’s research.
• Amazon’s Rufus was used by 300 million+ customers, helping deliver nearly $12 billion in incremental annualized sales last year, according to Amazon’s fourth-quarter release.
• Companies that deployed their own AI agents saw a 59% higher growth rate, averaging a 6.2% year-over-year sales increase versus 3.9% in Salesforce’s holiday data.
• Ecommerce fraud pressure increased 33% year over year during the first four months of 2026, and card-testing attacks surged 175% year over year, according to Signifyd.

Editor’s Choice

• US retail e-commerce sales, second quarter: $340.2 billion in the second quarter of 2026, adjusted for seasonal variation.
• Revenue fueled by AI and agents, holiday season: $262 billion in the 2025 holiday season, per Salesforce.
• Sales-ready listings made with generative AI: more than 12 million, created by independent sellers on Amazon in 2025.
• Forecast AI traffic growth to US retail sites, holiday season: 130% year over year this holiday season, per Adobe’s 2026 forecast.
• Average fraud cost per ecommerce enterprise: $11.4 million (£8.4 million) over the past year, an increase of 7.5% compared with 2025, per Ravelin.
• Merchants hit by AI-enabled fraud or abuse: 64% in the past year, in Ravelin’s merchant survey.

AI in E-commerce Statistics: AI Traffic to Retail Sites

• AI-driven retail traffic continues to hit new highs, with July 2026 seeing 62% growth year over year, according to Adobe Digital Insights.
• AI-driven retail traffic hit a new high in May 2026, growing 138% year over year and reaching its highest share of total retail visits since tracking began in October 2024.
• Adobe expects AI traffic to US retail sites this holiday season, measured by shoppers clicking on a link, to rise 130% year over year.
• Even without a seasonal lift, AI visit share in May 2026 surpassed every month in 2025.
• Adobe’s analysis covers more than one trillion visits to US retail sites.
• The growth rate is shrinking because the base keeps growing: Adobe still reports record AI visit share in the same months its year-over-year rate falls.

Source: Adobe Digital Insights AI traffic reports 2026, Adobe 2026 Holiday Shopping Forecast

Traffic is only half the story; what those visitors do once they land matters more.

About This Data

• Sources: 19 in total, made up of 1 US Census Bureau release, 16 company results releases, reports and newsroom posts from Adobe, Salesforce, Amazon, Shopify and eBay, and 2 fraud reports from Signifyd and Ravelin.
• Publication dates: September 2024 to October 2026.
• Selection: Only government data, company disclosures and named vendor research qualified.
• Updates: Figures are reviewed on a rolling basis and updated when sources publish new editions.

AI Traffic Conversion and Revenue per Visit

• In July 2026, AI-referred retail visitors converted at a rate 60% higher than non-AI traffic, up from 54% in May 2026.
• In March 2026, AI-referred visitors converted 42% more than non-AI traffic, after converting at nearly half the rate of non-AI traffic a year earlier.
• The revenue-per-visit advantage of AI-referred retail visitors in July 2026 was the strongest on record, on par with May 2026 and a sharp climb from 37% in March.
• AI-referred visitors’ add-to-cart advantage peaked at 52% in April 2026, the strongest gap on record for this metric, and in January 2025, non-AI visitors were adding to cart at a 69% higher rate.
• AI-referred visitors pulled ahead in September 2025, when they added to cart at a higher rate than non-AI traffic for the first time.
• Shoppers referred to retailer websites from AI-powered search channels converted nine times more often than those coming through social media referrals, according to Salesforce.

Key finding: Twelve months prior, non-AI visits were worth 128% more than AI visits, according to Adobe Digital Insights. In July 2026, AI-referred retail visitors generated 53% more revenue per visit than non-AI traffic. A store owner who judges AI referrals by their share of visits alone is reading the wrong number.

Do AI shoppers convert better?

Yes, on Adobe’s US retail data, and only recently. In July 2026, AI-referred retail visitors converted at a rate 60% higher than non-AI traffic. A year before March 2026, AI-referred visitors converted at nearly half the rate of non-AI traffic.

Recent Developments

• October 6, 2026: According to Shopify’s 2026 Global Holiday Retail Report, 65% of shoppers say they’ll use AI for at least one shopping task this season.
• September 28, 2026: Adobe expects US online sales to hit $275.1 billion this holiday season (November 1 to December 31, 2026), growing 6.7% year over year.
• August 19, 2026: Adobe reported that AI-driven retail traffic continues to hit new highs, with July 2026 seeing 62% growth year over year.
• August 18, 2026: The Census Bureau estimated US retail e-commerce sales for the second quarter of 2026 at $340.2 billion, or 17.1% of total sales.
• August 6, 2026: Signifyd’s State of Fraud Report 2026 found that ecommerce fraud pressure increased 33% year over year during the first four months of 2026.
• July 30, 2026: Amazon brought together Rufus and Alexa+ into Alexa for Shopping, with active users close to doubling and interactions up over 5x year over year in Q2.

Engagement, Time on Site and Bounce Rates for AI Visitors

• In July 2026, AI-referred retail visitors spent 59% more time on site than visitors from other channels, the highest time-on-site advantage to date, up from 53% in May 2026.
• AI-referred visitors’ engagement advantage in July 2026 was roughly the same as in May 2026 (15%), continuing steady growth from the 9% to 14% range seen throughout late 2024 and 2025.
• AI-referred retail visitors were 34% less likely to bounce in July 2026 than visitors from other channels, a slight decrease from the record gap of 36% in May 2026.
• AI bounce rates have held in a tight 17% to 20% band for more than a year while non-AI rates hover near 27%.
• “Engagement” is Adobe’s own metric, so it is reported here exactly as Adobe labels it.

Some stores now run the assistant themselves, which is where Amazon’s numbers come in.

AI Shopping Assistants: Rufus and Alexa for Shopping

• Rufus, Amazon’s agentic AI shopping assistant, was used by 300 million+ customers and helped deliver nearly $12 billion in incremental annualized sales last year, according to Amazon’s fourth-quarter release.
• Rufus can shop tens of millions of items in other online stores directly and make purchases on behalf of customers using its agentic Buy For Me feature.
• Amazon brought together Rufus and Alexa+ into Alexa for Shopping, an agentic AI shopping assistant that offers personalized recommendations, product comparisons and price history.
• In the US, customers who use Alexa for Shopping spend an average of over 40% more per order than those who don’t.
• Visual search on mobile shopping devices is growing: customers used Lens, an AI tool that helps customers find products with a phone camera, screenshot or bar code, 45% more year over year.
• Amazon’s AI-powered “Hear the highlights” has been used by millions of customers who have streamed over 40 million minutes of audio.
• Rufus no longer runs as a separate assistant, so later Amazon figures describe the combined Alexa for Shopping product.

Source: Amazon quarterly results releases, February to July 2026

Amazon’s numbers describe its own store; surveys show how far the habit has spread across shoppers.

How Many Shoppers Use AI for Online Shopping

• According to the July 2026 Adobe Consumer Survey, 42% of consumers have used AI assistants for online shopping, a 4-point jump since March 2026.
• 83% of those who use AI for shopping agree that AI assistants have improved their online shopping experience.
• 77% of consumers using AI for online shopping report feeling more confident in a purchase after using an AI assistant, and 69% say they are less likely to return an item they bought with the help of an AI assistant.
• 95% of consumers who turn to AI say its responses are at least as trustworthy as a traditional search engine, rising to 97% among regular users.
• 71% of regular AI users are more likely to choose an indie brand this year than last, according to Shopify, and 81% of shoppers who use AI regularly are choosing more products this year because they feel personal, intentional, or considered.
• Adobe’s consumer surveys covered more than 5,000 US respondents in July 2026.

Source: Adobe Consumer Survey March and July 2026, Shopify 2026 Global Holiday Retail Report

How is AI being used in e-commerce?

AI shows up at four points of an online sale: product research, shopping assistants, listing creation and fraud. 42% of consumers have used AI assistants for online shopping, independent sellers created more than 12 million sales-ready listings using generative AI in 2025, and ecommerce fraud pressure increased 33% year over year during the first four months of 2026.

AI-Influenced Holiday Sales and Agentic Commerce

• In the 2025 holiday season, AI and agents drove 20% of all retail sales and fueled $262 billion in revenue through personalized recommendations and deeper customer engagement, according to Salesforce.
• The share of global and US traffic from third-party AI search channels like ChatGPT and Perplexity doubled compared to the prior year.
• Retailers running their own AI agents grew faster: companies that deployed their own AI agents saw a 59% higher growth rate, averaging a 6.2% year-over-year sales increase versus 3.9%.
• Shoppers used retailers’ AI and agents for customer service 126% more during the holiday rush than in the two months prior, and agents handled 142% more tasks, such as updating delivery addresses and initiating returns.
• In agentic customer service, December 2025 saw a 66% jump in the number of agentic AI-powered service conversations over November.

Source: Salesforce 2025 Holiday Shopping Data, Salesforce Cyber Week 2025 Results

• “Drove” and “influenced” are Salesforce’s own attribution terms, so these totals are not sales completed by AI agents alone.
• Adobe expects AI traffic to US retail sites this holiday season to rise 130% year over year, with the biggest uptick expected on Thanksgiving (up 159%).
• Adobe measures that AI traffic by shoppers clicking on a link.

By the numbers: AI and agents drove 20% of all retail sales and fueled $262 billion in revenue in the 2025 holiday season, according to Salesforce. Companies that deployed their own AI agents averaged a 6.2% year-over-year sales increase versus 3.9%. The measured growth gap belongs to stores that run their own agent.

• Merchants can now sell inside AI chats as well: Shopify said millions of merchants can sell to ChatGPT users via Agentic Storefronts, which give merchants access to ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, AI Mode in Google Search, and the Gemini app.
• Stanley 1913 saw five times as many AI-referred orders in the US as the same window last year, and ILIA saw its AI-referred sales nearly triple year over year, Shopify reported.
• Shopify achieved 34% revenue growth for the quarter ended June 30, 2026.

Will AI replace e-commerce?

Not on current evidence: AI sits in front of online stores rather than replacing them. Shoppers are using AI to research products, but they stop short of letting an agent autonomously complete a purchase, and only one-third say they trusted an AI agent to buy on their behalf. E-commerce sales accounted for 17.1% of total US retail sales in the second quarter of 2026.

US E-commerce Sales by Quarter

• US retail e-commerce sales for the second quarter of 2026 were $340.2 billion, adjusted for seasonal variation, an increase of 3.8% from the first quarter of 2026.
• The second-quarter 2026 e-commerce estimate increased 12.2% from the second quarter of 2025, while total retail sales increased 6.7% in the same period.
• E-commerce sales in the second quarter of 2026 accounted for 17.1% of total sales, up from 16.3% in the second quarter of 2025.
• The Census Bureau counts a sale as e-commerce when the buyer places an order online; payment may or may not be made online, and estimates include data only for businesses with paid employees.
• These Census totals cover all online retail with no AI attribution, so the share figures describe e-commerce as a whole.

Marketplace results give another view of that quarter through Amazon’s online stores line: online stores net sales were $70.432 billion in the second quarter of 2026, up 15% year over year excluding foreign exchange. Amazon reports the online stores line as a company segment rather than a US figure, so it sits beside the Census series for scale rather than inside it.

Generative AI in Product Listings and Seller Tools

• Listing copy is where generative AI reaches sellers at scale: in 2025, independent sellers created more than 12 million sales-ready listings using generative AI, according to Amazon.
• In 2025, Seller Assistant, an always-on, agentic AI expert for sellers, had more than 230,000 monthly users, with sellers accepting its recommended actions more than 90% of the time.
• More than 900,000 Amazon selling partners had embraced its gen AI listing tools as of September 2024, accepting AI-generated content with little to no edits approximately 90% of the time. That adoption count is more than a year old.
• eBay’s AI-powered card scanning feature surpassed 30 million cumulative scans in the first quarter of 2026, and it recently surpassed 80 million cumulative scans, per eBay’s second-quarter release.
• The latest generation of eBay’s Magical Listing tool was expanded to include all new and reactivated listers in the U.K. and Germany.

Source: Amazon 2025 Small Business Empowerment Report, Amazon Enhance My Listing announcement, Amazon Q2 2026 results, eBay Q2 2026 results

AI Visibility of Online Stores vs Other Industries

• Growth in AI in retail traffic led the list: every industry saw an AI traffic boost during the first quarter of 2026, with Retail up 393% year over year, according to Adobe.
• Tech/Software had the highest AI visit share, roughly 2x Media/Entertainment and 4x Retail.
• Retail’s AI traffic grew fastest, yet AI still makes up a larger share of tech-site traffic than of retail traffic.
• Apparel (76%) leads all retail sub-industries in AI citation readability, with Electronics (70%) second.
• Grocery (59%) is the lowest-scoring sub-industry, trailing General Merchandise (63%), and a 17-point gap separates Apparel from Grocery.

AI visibility also depends on the store’s own pages. In Adobe’s July 2026 analysis, consistent content structure across homepage, blog, and product pages carries Apparel to the top, while spec-heavy product pages and structured technical content support strong AI citation readability for Electronics. Content structure across a store’s homepage, blog and product pages is an AI visibility lever the store controls itself, and the sub-industry spread shows how much it varies by category.

AI and E-commerce Fraud

• Ecommerce fraud pressure increased 33% year over year during the first four months of 2026, based on transactions across Signifyd’s Commerce Network of thousands of online merchants and 950 million unique digital wallets.
• Card-testing attacks surged 175% year over year, enabling fraudsters to validate stolen payment credentials faster than ever before.
• Buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) orders start at an online checkout and end at a store counter. BOPIS fraud increased 65% year over year, highlighting how fraud is extending beyond online checkout into fulfillment operations.
• Ravelin’s survey of over 1,500 merchants spanning Europe, North and South America, and Australia finds 66% of merchants have seen an increase in fraud.
• AI-enabled attacks already reach most of Ravelin’s surveyed merchants: two thirds (64%) of merchants have experienced AI-enabled fraud or abuse in the past year.

Signifyd’s figures come from transaction data and Ravelin’s from a merchant survey, so the two are kept apart rather than merged. On the defense side, three respondents in 10 say they do not use AI to defend against fraud, and two thirds of the merchants polled (66%) attribute at least 5% of their fraud losses to AI attacks, while for one in five, AI fraud accounts for over 15% of losses.

Source: Ravelin Global Fraud Trends 2026

Why it matters: AI-referred retail visitors converted at a rate 60% higher than non-AI traffic in July 2026, per Adobe, while card-testing attacks surged 175% year over year in Signifyd’s data. Better-converting AI visitors arrive at the same checkout where attacks keep rising, so a store opening its catalog to AI agents needs its fraud screening to keep pace.

Conclusion

AI-driven retail traffic grew 62% year over year in July 2026, and AI-referred retail visitors converted at a rate 60% higher than non-AI traffic. The AI visitor now converts better than other traffic, yet most shoppers keep the final purchase decision for themselves.

Only one-third of shoppers say they trusted an AI agent to buy on their behalf, while ecommerce fraud pressure increased 33% year over year during the first four months of 2026. The next test is the holiday season, when Adobe’s forecast of 130% AI traffic growth meets the actual numbers.