Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Artificial intelligence is playing a significantly bigger role in online shopping, according to Adobe Analytics. During the 2025 holiday shopping season, AI referrals generated a nearly seven-fold increase in online retail shopping traffic, compared to a year earlier, Adobe says.
At the same time, conversion rates from AI referrals were 31% higher than from other online sources—nearly double that seen in the same period a year ago—during the 2025 holiday shopping period, which ran Nov. 1 through Dec. 31. Shopping-driven events, such as Black Friday, also saw significantly higher year-over-year increases. AI-driven conversions on Thanksgiving Day were 54% higher than those not AI-driven, and 38% higher on Black Friday, Adobe says.
AI referrals consist of online-shopper traffic generated by clicking on a link in an answer generated by an AI chatbot or automated system.
The increase in AI-generated referrals and conversions helped boost AI-driven revenue per visit more than two-fold during the holiday shopping season.
Adobe Analytics tracked more than 1 trillion visits to retail e-commerce sites in the United States, 100 million stock-keeping units, and 18 product categories.
In addition to tracking AI referrals and conversions, Adobe tracked what happens after shoppers click through a link from a generative AI-powered chat service or browser.
“This is where things get especially interesting for retailers,” Vivek Pandya, director of digital insights at Adobe Analytics, says in a blog post.
Shoppers who arrive at retail sites from generative-AI assistants were 33% less likely to leave immediately, a 14% improvement since the beginning of 2025, Adobe says.
“In practical terms, this means shoppers arriving from AI assistants aren’t just landing and leaving,” Pandya says. “They’re spending 45% more time on-site and viewing 13% more pages per visit, signaling higher intent and stronger alignment with what they’re looking for.” Some 81% of online shoppers using AI assistants reported a better shopping experience.
One reason consumers are actively embracing AI referrals is trust in the technology, according to the research. Some 47% of consumers reported trust in AI, while 64% of shoppers using AI report being satisfied with the links they receive, and more than 55% say they actively click on those links, according to the Adobe Analytics Holiday 2025 Consumer Survey. In addition, 65% of online shoppers using AI are more confident in their purchase after the help of AI, and 68% say they are less likely to return the product after using AI for the purchase.
“As trust grows, purchase confidence is also rising,” Pandya says. “As more consumers turn to large language models to research products, compare options, and make decisions, one thing is becoming clear: generative AI is no longer a side channel for commerce discovery.”
