Tidio Research Finds AI Influences Half of Purchase Decisions but Receives Credit for Less Than 1% of Web Traffic

New report highlights significant 'dark AI' attribution gap, showing AI's major influence on purchase decisions despite minimal visibility in web traffic analytics.

Mar. 27, 2026 at 10:04am

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According to a new report by Tidio, AI is shaping purchase decisions at a scale that standard attribution models are structurally unable to capture. The report finds that while half of consumers now rely on AI as their primary or preferred source for product research, AI-referred sessions account for only 0.2% of total retail web traffic. This 'dark AI' phenomenon occurs when consumers ask an AI assistant for product recommendations, then navigate directly to a brand's website, resulting in the session being attributed to direct or organic traffic rather than the AI influence.

Why it matters

The report highlights a growing challenge for marketers, as brands making budget decisions based on last-click attribution are optimizing for a measurement system that cannot see what is actually driving demand. The financial stakes are substantial, with McKinsey projecting $750 billion in U.S. revenue will flow through AI-powered search by 2028, and Morgan Stanley estimating AI agents will influence between $190 billion and $385 billion in U.S. e-commerce spending by 2030.

The details

The report, titled 'AI in E-Commerce in 2026: The New Shopping Funnel', draws on more than 60 sources including McKinsey, Contentsquare, Similarweb, Bain, and Tidio's own platform data. It finds that the conversion data from sessions that do get tagged as AI-referred suggests the undercounting is significant, with ChatGPT-referred sessions converting at 11.4% - the highest rate of any measured channel, ahead of direct traffic at 10.2%, paid search at 9.3%, and organic search at 5.3%. The report also documents the protocol infrastructure being built to formalize AI's role in transactions, including Google's Universal Commerce Protocol, OpenAI's Agentic Commerce Protocol, and Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol.

  • The report was published on March 27, 2026.

The players

Tidio

An AI-powered customer service platform that unifies live chat, chatbots, and AI agents in one help desk. Its AI agent, Lyro, resolves customer inquiries automatically and escalates complex cases to human operators. The platform is designed for fast-growing e-commerce businesses that treat customer service as a revenue function.

Tytus Gołas

The Founder and CEO of Tidio.

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What they’re saying

“Brands making budget decisions based on last-click attribution are optimizing for a measurement system that cannot see what is actually driving demand.”

— Tytus Gołas, Founder and CEO of Tidio

What’s next

The report indicates that the attribution gap continues to widen, suggesting a growing challenge for marketers as they navigate the evolving role of AI in e-commerce.

The takeaway

This report highlights the significant influence of AI on purchase decisions, despite the lack of visibility in traditional web traffic analytics. It underscores the need for marketers to adapt their measurement and attribution models to better capture the impact of AI-driven consumer behavior.