E-commerce sales were up 9.3% duirng this year’s Prime Day event, with AI-related searched resulting in higher purchasing rates.
getty
During this year’s four‑day Prime Day sales event, AI‑driven product searches and AI‑directed traffic delivered higher purchase rates, according to data released by Adobe.
Adobe’s analysis of U.S. retail sites over the four Prime days revealed a notable shift toward AI‑powered chat and browsers as key drivers of sales this year.
Shoppers who leveraged AI to discover products and deals saw a 40% higher conversion rate compared to non‑AI channels like paid search, email, and social media. This performance reversal contrasts sharply with last year’s Prime Day, where AI‑directed traffic conversion lagged behind other channels by 23%.
Although AI still accounts for a modest share of total online traffic, the data indicate that AI is “shortening the time it takes for consumers to confidently obtain the information they need,” according to Adobe.
“AI‑powered chat services and browsers have cemented their role in the online shopping experience, providing utility for shoppers who value the speed and convenience,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst, Adobe Digital Insights, when releasing the report on the first day of Prime Day.
But, Pandya noted, a big problem for retailers is that “sizable portions of retailer’s websites, up to 46 percent in some cases, are not readable by machines.”
That problem, Pandya said, “limits their visibility across AI surfaces and will push brands to invest in more AI‑friendly content such as tutorials, how‑to guides, customer service pages, and more.”
Prime Day underscores the need for retailers to meet heightened demand and deliver correct items on schedule—a requirement that has grown more critical in the AI era, according to Omar Qari, CEO of ecommerce and supply chain platform Logicbroker.
“The same connected data infrastructure that allows retailers to manage inventory, suppliers, orders and fulfillment in real time during Prime Day is what makes products discoverable and trustworthy in AI‑driven commerce,” Qari said. “Yet many retailers remain too focused on how to get recommended by AI when the bigger question is whether they’ve earned the trust to keep being recommended at all.”
Adobe has been tracking AI‑directed traffic growth for over a year. In the first five months of this year, through May, AI traffic to U.S. retail sites jumped 235% year‑over‑year. During the Prime Day period (June 23‑26), AI‑directed traffic rose 89% year‑over‑year.
Consumers spent $26.4 billion online during the four sale days, up 9.3% from Prime Day 2025. This increase slightly exceeded Adobe’s forecast of 9% growth.
The summer Prime Day event is beginning to rival the peak holiday sales period—from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday—in terms of total spending.
During the peak holiday sales period in 2025, online sales reached $32.45 billion.
Five categories posted the largest sales increases during Prime Day: electronics (up 120% versus June’s average daily sales), appliances (up 90%), tools and home improvement (up 70%), home and garden (up 65%), and furniture and bedding (up 55%).
Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) financing usage rose 9.5% year‑over‑year during this year’s Prime Day event, accounting for 6.6% of online orders and $2.1 billion in spending.