Salesforce: AI Agents Will Drive 20% of E-Commerce Visits
Salesforce expects one in every five e-commerce visits during the 2026 holiday season to come through AI conversational agents, based on an index covering more than 1.5 billion shoppers.
Salesforce expects one in every five e-commerce shopping visits during the 2026 holiday season to occur through AI-powered conversational agents, representing 20% of total visits.
The company estimates that one in three websites will offer an AI shopping assistant prior to Cyber Week, while social shopping transactions are expected to grow more than nine times faster than traditional e-commerce.
Projections indicate that hybrid purchases, completed partly online and partly in-store, will account for 38% of holiday spending, with an additional $4.8 billion going toward free shipping expenses.
These figures are based on the company's Shopping Index, which encompasses data from more than 1.5 billion shoppers, making it an essential reference for retailers planning their upcoming season.
What Do These Terms Mean?
AI Agent: Software that conducts a conversation on behalf of the user and executes tasks such as searching, comparing, and purchasing without direct intervention.
Social Shopping: Purchases that originate from or are completed through social media platforms, rather than a traditional e-commerce store.
Shopping Index: A massive database aggregating the behavior of millions of shoppers, used to estimate spending trends.
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