How Target grew its AI-driven traffic twentyfold in a year, and what other brands can learn from it

In the first quarter of 2026, AI-driven traffic to Target grew 2,000%, versus 393% for US retail sites. Target sells inside Google, Copilot, and ChatGPT, and visitors who arrive from an AI convert 42% better.

In the first quarter of 2026, traffic reaching Target from AI platforms grew 2,000% compared with a year earlier. The figure comes from Target itself, the US retail chain that reported $26.5 billion in net sales last quarter.

Over the same period, AI traffic to US retail sites grew 393%, according to Adobe. Target grew about five times faster than the sector. There is an explanation for the gap: Target made its products purchasable inside AI conversations, while retail sites, on average, are only partly readable by AI.

The numbers: Target versus the sector

The comparison rests on two sources. Target’s growth is stated in an official company fact sheet updated on June 18, 2026. The sector figure comes from Adobe, which on April 16, 2026, published an analysis covering more than 1 trillion visits to US retail sites. Between January and March 2026, AI traffic to those sites rose 393% year over year, after a 693% increase over the holiday season, from November to December 2025.

The trend has continued. In its second-quarter results, published on August 19, Target says digital traffic from external AI platforms such as OpenAI and Google is growing more than 3.5 times the industry compared with a year ago. In the same quarter, comparable digital sales rose 8.7%.

These numbers have a limit. Target publishes percentages, not absolute values: a 2,000% increase can start from a small base. The company also does not say what share of its digital sales comes from AI.

Three platforms, three ways to buy

Target describes itself as the first mass retailer with shopping experiences on three AI platforms. Each one works differently.

• On Google, in Search with AI Mode and in the Gemini app, shoppers browse products and buy from Target without leaving the conversation. They pay with Google Pay, and shipping is available only in the United States.
• On Microsoft Copilot, shoppers link their Target account and complete the order in the chat, with the benefits of the Target Circle loyalty program.
• On ChatGPT, the Target app lets shoppers put multiple items in a single order, including fresh food, and choose between pickup and shipping.

Purchases on Google run on the Universal Commerce Protocol, an open standard for purchases made by AI agents that Google introduced on January 11, 2026. It was co-developed with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target, and Walmart, and the more than 20 companies endorsing it include Zalando. For now it covers US retailers: Google has announced plans to extend it to other countries.

The organization has changed too. As of August 24, Target has its first chief AI officer, Chandhu Nair, tasked with coordinating the use of AI across the company.

Visitors who arrive from an AI buy more

Adobe also measures what happens after the visitor lands on the site. In March 2026, visits coming from an AI converted into purchases 42% better than other visits. A year earlier, in March 2025, the opposite was true: they converted 38% worse. Visitors who arrive from an AI spend 48% more time on the site and view 13% more pages per visit.

One possible reading lies in the journey. By the time they arrive, these visitors have already asked questions, compared alternatives, and narrowed their choice inside the conversation. In Adobe’s survey of more than 5,000 people in the United States, 39% say they have already used AI for online shopping, and 85% of them say it improved their experience. Willingness to hand over the entire purchase remains lower: in another survey, only 17% feel comfortable completing a purchase through AI.

Where the others fall short: sites AI can only partly read

The same Adobe analysis measures how much of a page a language model can read. On US retail sites, the average is 75% for homepages, 74% for category pages, and 66% for product pages. About a third of the content on product pages, in other words, does not exist for AI.

The distance between sites is wide. Homepages of the best performers reach 82.5%, while those of the worst stop at 54.2%. Service pages such as FAQs or returns sit at around 80%.

Read together, the two sets of data explain the gap. AI traffic is growing for everyone and converts better than other channels. But it goes to the sites AI can read and, in Target’s case, to the ones it can also buy from inside the answer.

What applies to a brand that is not Target

Purchases inside chats are limited to the United States for now. What comes before the purchase already applies everywhere: people ask an AI what to buy and from whom, and the AI answers with what it finds. According to SparkToro, 68% of Google searches in the United States end without a click.

A company without Target’s resources faces three questions, in this order. Do AI platforms name the brand when someone asks for a recommendation in its category? How do they describe it? Which sources do they draw on?

Those are the questions an AI Brand Audit answers: 80 questions across 6 AI platforms, with every answer recorded and traced back to its sources. That measurement is what tells you where to act: on product pages, on external sources, or, later on, on purchases inside the chat.

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Written by

Gianluca Pezzi

Co-founder of ThinkAI, a boutique specializing in AI brand governance and measuring brand visibility across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. A journalist with a master's degree in architecture, he previously ran Blogo, founded QuotidianoMotori.com, and contributes to Esquire Italia and Men's Healt.