[DEVELOPING] Adobe: AI-assistant referrals to US retail +130% this holiday vs paid search +4%; 43% more revenue per visit
Adobe's holiday forecast (Sep 28) projects US online holiday sales of $275.1B (+6.7%) for Nov 1 to Dec 31 and, within the traffic mix, a 130% year-on-year rise in visits referred by generative-AI assistants against +4% for paid search; in August, AI-referred visitors produced 43% higher revenue per visit and 32% higher add-to-cart rates than the site average. The measure counts clicks from assistants such as ChatGPT and Claude to retailer sites and excludes on-site bots. Read-through: the answer engines are becoming a measurable commerce channel while the incumbent paid-search line is flat, which is the traffic shift the beat tracks; CX Dive and Bloomberg carry the numbers independently of the release. Watch: OpenAI DevDay today (Sep 29, 10:00 PT) for commerce or ads announcements, and whether Adobe's Thanksgiving-week peak figure is restated (the release and the report page disagree).