AI Conversions: How GenAI Search Traffic Is Helping Retailers

I’ve put a lot of focus on AI and search recently, particularly for what it’s meant to publishers who are forever battling for ad revenue and SEO positioning and now have to contend with their work being scraped for, chewed up, spit out, and left-behind forgotten because of inherent attribution issues.

But new research has found some true benefactors from AI’s search renaissance, and that’s retailers. Adobe found what it’s calling “the first material surge in generative AI traffic to U.S. retail sites,” looking at more than a trillion visits to retail sites in the United States and seeing a 1,300% YoY increase in genAI-sourced traffic between the heavy-shopping period of November 1 and December 31, 2024. 

And outside the holiday season, there was a 1,200% increase in February 2025’s AI–sourced traffic compared to July 2024.

“This shows the shift in consumer behaviors over a seven-month period,” writes Adobe’s Vivek Pandya. “And while generative AI traffic remains modest compared to other channels, such as paid search or email, its growth has been notable — doubling every two months since September 2024.”

In surveying consumers, Adobe found that they’re using genAI for research (55%), recommendations (47%), seeking deals (43%), gift ideas (35%), finding unique products (35%) and creating shopping lists (33%). And once they land on a retailer’s site from genAI, their actions are more valuable than if they had come from “non-AI traffic sources (including paid search, affiliates and partners, email, organic search, and social media).”

That includes 8% higher engagement on the site, 12% more pages per visit, a 23% less bounce rate, stats that The Verge says “could suggest that AI tools are directing people to more relevant pages than traditional search.”

Adobe found that conversion rates from genAI-sourced traffic is still lower than from other sources of traffic — 9% lower — but much improved from last July when the AI-sourced conversation rate was 43% less than non-AI.

(Source: Adobe)

“The conversion gap reinforces that AI is being utilized during the research and consideration stage, in advance of when shoppers are ready to hit the buy button,” the report says. “But the narrowing gap shows that consumers are also increasingly comfortable completing a transaction directly after an AI-powered chat experience.”

For more information about how to improve your email deliverability, download A Beginner’s Guide to Email Marketing by Mirabel’s Marketing Manager: