The next customer of yours may never go to your website.

An AI agent will go and have a look at it on their behalf and will then determine whether or not to recommend you.

AI is involved at some stage in one in every five online orders.(Salesforce, Cyber Week data)

Does it sound like something out of the future? It actually took place on the last Black Friday:

👉 AI sent 805% more traffic to online stores than the year before (Adobe Analytics)

👉 1 in every 5 orders had AI involved — $67 billion in Cyber Week sales (Salesforce)

👉 ChatGPT alone now handles ~50 million shopping questions per day (OpenAI)

And here’s what this means for your P&L:
It’s the most inexpensive channel that you aren’t currently using.

You don’t have to pay anything when you use an AI recommendation; instead look at the bills you receive from Google and Meta.

It performs better in conversion than anything you currently have.

Shoppers who use AI refer to it 38% more often than those using search traffic (Adobe). Why is that? Because the AI has already compared the options, checked the prices, and made the sale ahead of time, so these shoppers arrive at the site convinced.

The stores that plugged in increased their growth by about seven times.

In Cyber Week the retailers that had AI integrations grew by about seven times on the rest (Salesforce). It was the same market and the same season, but a different channel.

But there’s a catch — and it’s the part nobody tells you:

If a customer asks the AI where they should buy X, it will suggest two or three stores; you won’t lose a click if you aren’t one of those stores.

A customer is lost when they had no knowledge of your existence.

Whenever I audit e-commerce sites on a weekly basis, I realise why most stores remain unseen: because their product data is a mess, they fail to provide clear specifications, and they don’t answer the questions that customers actually ask. The AI therefore is unable to recommend them and ends up recommending a competitor instead.

Quick test (takes 30 seconds):
Go to ChatGPT and ask it where you can buy your best-selling product.

Is your name the answer?
If so, well done, make sure to protect that position.

If not, then that should be your priority in 2026. Don’t launch another advertising campaign.

In 2010 those shops which took Google seriously now control the respective categories, and the same opportunity is currently available with respect to AI since it won’t remain open for long.

Well, did the test place you at the answer? Let me know below 👇

#eCommerce#AgenticCommerce#AIShopping#OnlineRetail#BusinessGrowth