Adobe expects AI traffic to US retail to more than double this holiday. A Q4 readiness list

What Adobe forecast on 28 September

Adobe expects AI-driven visits to US retail sites to more than double this holiday season. Its forecast, released on 28 September and based on Adobe Analytics data covering more than one trillion visits to US retail sites, puts growth in AI traffic at 130% year on year for 1 November–31 December 2026.¹ Adobe counts AI traffic as shoppers clicking a link from an AI chat or browser service to a retail site.¹

Adobe expects the biggest jump on Thanksgiving, up 159%, followed by Black Friday at 95% and Cyber Monday at 88%.¹ Overall, it forecasts US online holiday sales of $275.1 billion, up 6.7%.¹

What the forecast does and does not tell you

It tells you direction and timing, not size. Adobe's release gives growth rates but not AI's share of all retail visits, and doubling a small channel still leaves a small channel.

The growth also slows from earlier in the year. Adobe reported AI traffic to US retail sites up 393% year on year in January–March 2026, and in March 2026 AI visits converted 42% better than other traffic.² A 130% forecast for the holidays is a lower rate on a larger base, which is what a maturing channel looks like.

The conversion point matters more for planning than the growth rate. Shoppers who arrive from an AI answer have usually compared options already, so the page they land on has to confirm what the answer said. Our August note on Adobe's July data looks at conversion and page readability in more detail.

Adobe's release also includes a consumer survey of 5,000 people, fielded in July 2026, with no geography stated. Among respondents who had used AI for online shopping, 77% said it made them more confident in their purchase and 69% said they were less likely to return an item.³ Those are self-reports, but they suggest AI-assisted shoppers arrive further along in their decision.

What should retailers fix before November?

Fix the facts that AI shopping answers read, in the order that loses sales fastest when wrong. Most of these are data jobs, not content projects, and they can be done in October.

1. Product feeds. ChatGPT Shopping now leans on integrated feeds. In Profound's data from 687 customers (1 July–24 August 2026), feed-integrated retrieval rose from 8.26% to 61.54% of picks on 10 July.⁴ Check that your feed reaches ChatGPT and Google, and that every holiday product is in it.
2. Prices. Make sure sale prices update in the feed when they change on the site, including timed offers on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Adobe expects discounts of up to 30% off listed prices during Cyber Week, so prices will move often.¹
3. Availability. Mark low-stock and sold-out items quickly. An answer that recommends a product you cannot ship costs you the shopper and their trust.
4. Shipping cut-offs. Publish the last order dates for delivery before the holidays as plain text on a page engines can read.
5. Returns policy. State the holiday returns window clearly, in HTML, near the top of the page.
6. Gift guides. Write them answer-first, with real products, prices and who each one suits, so an engine can quote them.

Our note on the July feed shift lists the feed fields worth auditing, and our notes on holiday prompts show what shoppers ask. If you also sell to Canada, our note on AI checkout for Canadian shoppers covers the feed fields that change there.

How to measure the season

Measure your own AI channel against your own last year, day by day. Adobe's figures describe US retail as a whole; your mix of engines and products will differ. If you buy ChatGPT ads for the season, report them apart from organic answers; our note on ChatGPT ads sets out what OpenAI says about the two.

• Baseline in October. Make sure AI referrers have their own channel in analytics, following our setup guide, and record October's weekly numbers.
• Compare like days. Set Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday against the same days last year, not against a weekly average.
• Track conversion, not just visits. Report AI-referred conversion rate and revenue per visit beside the visit count.
• Treat the channel as a floor. App traffic and AI Overview clicks land elsewhere, so the AI channel undercounts.

Our view at Sigzen AI: the most useful holiday report this year is not "AI traffic grew", which Adobe has already predicted. It is which products AI answers sent shoppers to, and whether those pages converted. That tells you what to fix before next season.

Price accuracy deserves its own check during the peak days. Run a handful of product prompts on Thanksgiving morning and again on Cyber Monday, and compare the prices the answers quote with your live prices. An engine quoting yesterday's offer is a sign that the feed is updating more slowly than the site, which is fixable before the next sale.