--- title: "AI Shopping Isn't a Future Behaviour. Retailers Are Already Measuring It" description: "Bunnings' Buddy assistant is converting at roughly 2x, and Shopify says AI-agent traffic has tripled with 58% higher conversion than organic search. The goal has shifted from earning the click to earning the selection." date: 2026-09-22 dateModified: 2026-09-22 author: "Malin Gaertig" canonical: https://marksuite.ai/insights/ai-shopping-retailers-already-measuring-it categories: ["Agentic commerce","Market data","Case study"] publisher: MARK (https://marksuite.ai) --- # AI Shopping Isn't a Future Behaviour. Retailers Are Already Measuring It *2026-09-22* Two measurements from the ARC AI Summit — Bunnings' AI assistant converting at roughly twice the rate, and Shopify's AI-agent traffic tripling with 58% higher conversion — show the retail goal moving from earning the click to earning the selection. AI shopping isn't a future behaviour. Retailers are already measuring it. At the ARC AI Summit, two examples made the point from very different angles. ## What did Bunnings find when customers used its AI assistant? Vivek Pradhan shared early results from Buddy, its AI shopping assistant. Customers using Buddy were reported to convert at roughly 2x the rate of those who didn't. That is an on-site feature result. It doesn't prove Buddy caused the lift — customers who choose to use an AI assistant may already be more engaged. But it is a useful signal: AI assistance can be associated with materially different customer behaviour. ## What is Shopify seeing from AI-agent traffic? Shopify data pointed to AI-agent traffic to retailer websites had tripled in 12 months, with orders from that traffic also tripling. AI-agent shoppers were converting at a 58% higher rate than organic search traffic. Admittedly, to date AI-agent traffic still accounts for a small share of total traffic, directionally it points to a telling story. One example shows what happens when AI is introduced inside the shopping experience. The other shows what happens when AI agents begin sending customers to retailers from outside it. Different measurements from the same emerging shift. ## How is the customer journey actually changing? Increasingly, the customer journey looks less like: Search → click → compare → decide — and more like: Ask → shortlist → select → buy. The AI may do more of the research and comparison before the customer ever reaches the retailer. And that changes what retailers need to optimise for. ## What does earning the selection actually require? Traditional search was largely about earning the click. AI shopping is increasingly about earning the selection, which means: Can the system understand your products? Can it compare them accurately? Can it explain why one is better for this customer? Can it trust the information it finds? And, ultimately, does it select you? ## What should retailers do with this now? This is where the commercial opportunity starts to become interesting. The retailers getting into AI now don't need to predict exactly how shopping will work five years from now. They can put AI into the journey, measure what changes and learn from the behaviour. That is also the shift MARK is monitoring: from measuring whether a brand gets seen to understanding whether [AI selects it](/product/share-of-model) — and why. ## The commercial goal is moving from earning the click to earning the selection | | Traditional search | AI shopping | | --- | --- | --- | | The journey | Search → click → compare → decide. | Ask → shortlist → select → buy. | | Where AI sits | After the search, inside the retailer's site. | Before the click, researching and comparing on the customer's behalf. | | The goal | Earn the click from a results page. | Earn the selection from a model's shortlist. | | What you optimise for | Ranking, traffic and conversion rate. | Whether the system understands, compares, trusts and selects your products. | ## Key takeaways - AI shopping is already measurable: Bunnings reports Buddy users converting at roughly twice the rate of non-users. - Shopify data shows AI-agent traffic and orders tripling in 12 months, with 58% higher conversion than organic search. - One example measures AI inside the shopping experience, the other measures AI agents arriving from outside it — the same shift from different angles. - The journey is moving from search, click, compare, decide to ask, shortlist, select, buy. - Earning the selection requires product information a system can understand, compare, explain and trust — and a measurement of whether it selects you. Source: https://marksuite.ai/insights/ai-shopping-retailers-already-measuring-it ## See also (related MARK analysis) - [Walmart's checkout inside ChatGPT converted three times worse than its own website. It opened the door to AI agents anyway.](https://marksuite.ai/insights/walmart-amazon-shopee-ai-shopping-agents-retail-profit) - [Before You Measure Whether AI Makes Money, You Need to Know Whether It Makes the Right Decision](https://marksuite.ai/insights/did-ai-make-the-right-decision-bunnings) - [Just in: What Google Killing Assistant for Gemini Means for Brands Selling Through AI Agents](https://marksuite.ai/insights/google-killing-assistant-gemini-brands-selling-through-ai-agents) - [AI Visibility Isn't Whether a Model Can Find You. It's Whether the Evidence Chooses You.](https://marksuite.ai/insights/product-data-evidence-ai-selection-jb-hifi) - [Product suite](https://marksuite.ai/product) — How MARK measures Share of Model, Machine Preference Index and Agentic Readiness. - [Framework guides](https://marksuite.ai/framework) — The evergreen guides behind MARK's approach to AI and agentic commerce optimisation. ## About the publisher This analysis is published by MARK (https://marksuite.ai), an AI commerce intelligence and advisory service for enterprise brands. MARK measures how AI models such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and DeepSeek discover, represent, evaluate and select brands, identifies who benefits instead, diagnoses why, and turns the evidence into business context and prioritised action. Written by Malin Gaertig. ## About the author Malin Gaertig is a key person to speak to about Agentic Commerce and how it impacts a company's commercial growth. Malin founded MARK, an AI commerce intelligence and strategic advisory service that combines proprietary technology with 15 years of experience across growth marketing, digital, ecommerce and transformation. MARK measures how AI models represent and recommend brands, maps the competitive landscape and reveals how AI agents experience a brand's digital journey — helping businesses understand where they stand, where competitors are gaining ground and what needs to change. Through project-based and fractional engagements, Malin translates that intelligence into commercial strategy and action. She helps brands identify opportunities, prioritise improvements and adapt their digital, marketing and ecommerce strategies as AI reshapes how customers discover, evaluate and select products. MARK provides the intelligence. Malin brings the interpretation and strategic direction. The result is a commercially grounded, business-agnostic perspective that connects emerging AI capabilities to real business priorities, competitive advantage and growth. Related MARK pages: https://marksuite.ai/score (AI Commerce Benchmark), https://marksuite.ai/product (AI commerce intelligence and measurement), https://marksuite.ai/framework (framework guides). Cite as: MARK — https://marksuite.ai