Definition
AI-influenced sales are purchases where an AI feature played some part before the order. In the best-known figures, from Salesforce, that mostly means a retailer's own tools: personalised product recommendations and conversational customer service on the retailer's site. It is a much broader measure than AI-referred sales, which count only purchases that followed a click from an AI assistant to the retailer.
The Two Terms Side by Side
| Question | AI-influenced | AI-referred |
|---|---|---|
| Where was the AI? | Anywhere, usually on the retailer's own site | In an outside assistant such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity |
| What is counted? | Orders touched by an AI feature | Visits or orders that arrived through a link from the assistant |
| Who publishes it? | Salesforce | Adobe, Shopify |
| Typical headline | "AI drove $67 billion in Cyber Week sales" | "AI traffic to retail sites rose 693%" |
| What it tells a brand | On-site AI is widespread | How much demand assistants send you |
The Numbers
- AI-influenced: Salesforce said AI and agents influenced $67 billion of global Cyber Week 2025 sales, 20% of all orders, and $262 billion across the 2025 holiday season.
- AI-referred: Adobe said traffic from AI tools to US retail sites grew 693.4% in the 2025 holiday season and forecasts 130% growth for 2026. Adobe gives growth only and describes the base as modest.
- AI-referred orders: Shopify said in November 2026 that orders from AI tools on its stores were up 3.3 times year over year.
Why the Difference Matters
The Salesforce figure is often quoted as if a fifth of online purchases now come from chat assistants. It does not say that. A shopper who saw a "you may also like" panel and bought something counts as AI-influenced. That shopper may never have opened an assistant.
The mistake leads to two bad decisions. One is to overstate the assistant channel and move budget on a number that mostly describes on-site personalisation. The other is to dismiss the assistant channel when your own analytics show a small share, when the right comparison is last year's share.
How to Measure Your Own
- AI-referred: filter analytics by referrer for assistant domains and compare visits, conversion rate and revenue with other channels. See AI referral traffic.
- AI-influenced: use your commerce platform's reporting on recommendation and chat features. Keep it in a separate report from referrals.
- Neither captures everything: a shopper who asks an assistant for advice and later types your address directly appears in neither number.
Commonly Confused With
- AI traffic share (Salesforce 2026 prediction): Salesforce predicts 20% of 2026 holiday ecommerce traffic will come from AI agents. That figure includes backend agents and scrapers, not only shoppers.
- Agentic checkout: a purchase completed inside the assistant. It is a subset of AI-referred commerce and still small.
For this season's figures, see Black Friday 2026 AI shopping statistics.
Sources
Salesforce Cyber Week 2025 release, Adobe 2025 holiday season results and Adobe 2026 forecast. Shopify's figure was reported by trade press from its third-quarter 2026 call.