Research Reveals AI Drives Half of Purchase Decisions While Receiving Minimal Traffic Attribution

According to research from Tidio, artificial intelligence now influences approximately half of consumer purchase decisions while receiving attribution for less than 1% of web traffic. This discrepancy highlights a fundamental flaw in current marketing measurement systems that could have substantial financial consequences for brands.

The report, AI in E-Commerce in 2026: The New Shopping Funnel, synthesizes data from more than 60 sources including McKinsey, Contentsquare, and Similarweb. McKinsey research indicates half of consumers rely on AI as their primary or preferred source for product research, while Contentsquare’s analysis shows AI-referred sessions account for just 0.2% of total retail web traffic.

This gap occurs because consumers typically ask AI assistants for product recommendations, receive a shortlist, then navigate directly to brand websites via new browser tabs or branded searches. These sessions register as direct or organic traffic, leaving the AI that initiated the journey without attribution. The report terms this phenomenon ‘dark AI’ – commercially significant influence that remains analytically invisible.

When AI referrals are properly tracked, their performance metrics are exceptional. Similarweb’s analysis of U.S. retail data finds ChatGPT-referred sessions convert at 11.4%, the highest rate of any measured channel, surpassing direct traffic at 10.2%, paid search at 9.3%, and organic search at 5.3%. This conversion premium suggests tagged AI referrals represent only a fraction of AI-influenced shopping journeys.

The attribution gap appears to be widening. TollBit’s analysis of AI bot behavior across publisher sites shows click-through rates from AI applications dropped nearly threefold during 2025, from 0.8% in the second quarter to 0.27% by year-end, as AI platforms consume more content while generating proportionally fewer outbound clicks.

‘Brands making budget decisions based on last-click attribution are optimizing for a measurement system that cannot see what is actually driving demand,’ said Tytus Gołas, Founder and CEO of Tidio. ‘The inputs that determine AI visibility – feed completeness, structured data, review coverage – live across multiple teams in most organizations, and no one owns them because no one can see the return.’

The financial implications are substantial. McKinsey projects $750 billion in U.S. revenue will flow through AI-powered search by 2028, with brands that fail to prepare risking 20 to 50 percent of their traditional search traffic. Morgan Stanley estimates AI agents will influence between $190 billion and $385 billion in U.S. e-commerce spending by 2030.

Industry protocols are emerging to formalize AI’s role in transactions. Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol, OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol, and Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol are creating standardized frameworks for AI agents to complete purchases on behalf of consumers. Consumer readiness for such transactions is accelerating rapidly: Omnisend research found reluctance to allow AI to complete purchases dropped from 66% to 32% between February and July 2025.

The full report is available for download at https://www.getlyro.ai/reports/ai-in-ecommerce.

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