The generative AI revolution is not slowing down — in fact, it’s accelerating with breathtaking speed. Since our last report, AI-driven referral traffic has continued its meteoric rise across retail, travel, banking and beyond. In Q2 2025, AI referrals are not only growing in volume but also in value, engagement and consumer trust. Visit quality and revenue per visit are quickly approaching — and in many cases, eclipsing — parity with traditional channels. This isn’t just a trend, it’s a transformation in how people interact with the digital world.

Retail: AI traffic continues to surge, with strong engagement.

Traffic from AI continues to explode in retail. It has doubled from February 2025 to May 2025 and is up a whopping 35x in the 11 months from July 2024 to May 2025.

This traffic is increasingly productive and in many ways, outperforms traditional sources. AI referrals generate higher engagement than referrals from other channels. In May 2025:

• Bounce rate on AI traffic was 27% lower than bounce rate on non-AI traffic.
• Time spent per visit was 38% longer.
• Page views per visit were 10% higher.

And while AI conversion still lags other channels, the gap is closing quickly. In July of 2024, conversion rate on AI referrals was 91% lower than non-AI traffic. However, this gap has steadily shrunk and as of May 2025, AI traffic converted at rates only 22% lower than non-AI traffic.

We see a similar story with revenue per visit: in July 2024, revenue per visit from AI was only 3% of revenue per visit from non-AI sources. This improved over the 2024 holiday season and again in Q2 2025. By May 2025, revenue per visit on AI referrals was up to 70% of non-AI traffic.

Retail AI referrals remain desktop-heavy: desktop accounts for just 34% of overall retail traffic, but it accounts for 82% of AI-driven visits.

The high desktop visit share suggests that AI is being used to research larger, more complex purchases, where users prefer larger screens for deeper exploration. In fact, that’s the pattern that emerges when we explore retail’s AI leaders.

Consumers turn to AI to help them navigate complex buying decisions.

Consumer electronics and home goods have emerged as leaders in AI-driven traffic. These categories have high price points and tend to be regarded as considered purchases — driving a greater reliance on AI for research and decision-making than for apparel.

While traffic is growing at similar rates across categories, AI traffic share in consumer electronics is 4x the share for apparel and footwear and home goods is 3x that of apparel.

We examined what differentiated AI leaders in the apparel category from those lagging behind and found that companies generating a higher share of visits from AI are:

• Luxury and mid-tier retailers, as opposed to mass market.
• Direct-to-consumer private label retailers, as opposed to department store/multi-brand.

These brands have higher Average Order Value and lower conversion rates than those with lower AI visit shares. In other words, these are more considered purchases.

Travel: AI traffic is exploding, led by the highest consideration categories.

Travel categories continued to see an explosion in AI traffic. Traffic from AI referrals more than doubled from March to May 2025 and is now up a whopping 33x from July 2024. This tremendous growth is expected to continue — in a February 2025 survey, 87% of respondents expressed interest in future AI advancement in the industry, signalling a long runway.

AI traffic generates stronger engagement than traffic from other channels. As of May 2025:

• Bounce rate was 37% lower.
• Time spent on site was 25% longer.

Conversion rates for AI traffic still lag behind those from other channels, but that gap is closing. In July 2024, AI conversion rates were 82% lower than non-AI conversion rates, but by May 2025, they were only 49% lower.

As in retail, high consideration brands and categories have been early AI winners. Companies with a high visit share from AI referrals — like expensive international airlines — have much higher price points and much lower conversion rates than AI laggards

Banking: AI traffic is boosting engagement and use of banking applications.

Not to be outdone, the financial services industry has also seen stunning growth in AI-driven traffic. Traffic from AI referrals to banking sites increased 60% from February to May 2025 and is now up a stunning 28x from July 2024.

This traffic is driving strong engagement. Since November 2024, AI referrals have generated longer visits than traditional traffic sources. That gap has only grown in recent months — by May site visits from AI sources were 35% longer.

As AI adoption has increased, AI-driven banking applications have also grown, reflecting growing user confidence. Since January 2025, application start rates from AI traffic have been on par with application start rates from other channels. In May 2025, start rates from AI traffic were 7% higher than non-AI traffic.

Trust in AI is high. Of those who turn to AI for financial advice, nearly half are comfortable following its guidance without additional input. This marks a significant shift in how consumers approach financial decisions, with AI playing a central role in their journey.

Tech: Technology and software industry leads in AI traffic share.

The technology industry is, naturally, a leader in AI traffic. In May 2025, tech’s AI referral visit share was more than 2x that of media and entertainment, 5x travel and 10x retail and banking.

While starting from a higher baseline, the industry has nonetheless seen huge growth in AI visit share over the last year. Traffic from AI referrals is up 13x from July 2024 to May 2025 and up by 74% just from February 2025.

This traffic generates strong engagement with:

• 27% lower bounce rate
• 28% more time on site
• 20% more page views per visit

What’s next: From SEO to GEO.

As AI becomes embedded in search and discovery, brands must rethink their digital strategies. Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is emerging as the new frontier and appearing in AI-generated responses is quickly becoming essential for inclusion in a consumer’s consideration set. The second quarter of 2025 confirms what we saw in Q1 — AI is not a trend, it’s a transformation. Brands that embrace this shift early will be best positioned to lead in the AI-powered digital economy.

Abigail Winchell is a member of the Adobe Digital Insights team. Adobe Digital Insights has been a leader in tracking the digital economy since 2013. Adobe Digital Insights offers the most comprehensive analysis of its kind based on trillions of visits and billions of transactions across the web. With the breadth and depth of our data, we are uniquely positioned to understand the economy, customer journeys and the use of creative AI.

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