AI Search Statistics for Australian Ecommerce (2026)
Most AI search statistics you will find are American. They get quoted in Australian pitch decks anyway, which is how a founder ends up making a Melbourne budget decision on Ohio data.
This page separates the two. Australian figures are labelled Australian. United States figures are labelled United States, because the largest dataset on AI shopping behaviour (Adobe Analytics, more than one trillion visits) covers US retail sites only and there is no Australian equivalent at that scale yet.
The headline number for Australia comes from Roy Morgan. 13.6 million Australians aged 14 and over, or 58%, used an AI tool in an average four weeks in the March quarter of 2026, from a sample of 14,646 people. That is not an early-adopter cohort. That is most of the country.
Every statistic below names its source, its date, and the market it was measured in. Where sources disagree, both numbers are shown with the reason for the gap. Where a widely repeated figure has since moved, that is flagged too.
Key facts
- 13.6 million Australians aged 14+ (58%) use AI tools in an average four weeks (Roy Morgan, March quarter 2026)
- 64% of Australians have used AI assistants to browse, compare or discover products (Adyen Index 2026 Australia Retail Report)
- Only 26% of Australians are comfortable letting AI complete a purchase (Adyen, 2026)
- AI-referred traffic to US retail sites grew 138% year on year in May 2026 (Adobe Analytics)
- AI-referred visitors converted 54% better than non-AI visitors in May 2026 (Adobe Analytics, US retail)
- Australians spent $82.6 billion online in 2025, up 14% year on year (Australia Post eCommerce Report 2026)
How many Australians actually use AI tools?
Roy Morgan puts it at 13.6 million people aged 14 and over, which is 58% of that age group, measured across an average four-week period in the March quarter of 2026. ChatGPT is used by 10.5 million Australians (45%), more than double the next tool. Google Gemini reaches 5 million (21%) and Microsoft Copilot 4 million (17%).
The age pattern is the part most founders get wrong. Usage peaks at 74% among Australians aged 25 to 34 and 72% among those aged 35 to 49, ahead of 18 to 24 year olds at 68%. AI adoption in Australia is not a teenage habit. It is strongest in the exact cohort with money, mortgages and a shopping list.
Australians aged 50 to 64 sit at 50% and those 65 and over at 31%. If your customer base skews older, your AI exposure is genuinely lower, and this page is less urgent for you than for a brand selling to 30-somethings.
A note on the second number you will see. Telsyte reported a higher figure in June 2026, around 17.4 million Australians aged 16 and over. The gap is method, not contradiction. Roy Morgan measures use inside an average four-week window from a single-source survey. Telsyte measures broader adoption three months later against a different age base. Both are defensible. Quote whichever one you can cite, and say which.
How fast is AI search traffic growing?
Fast, from a small base, and the best data is American. Adobe Analytics reports that AI-referred traffic to US retail sites grew 138% year on year in May 2026, and has grown 1,324% since October 2024 when Adobe started tracking it. The findings draw on more than one trillion visits to US retail sites.
Earlier quarters ran hotter. AI-referred traffic to US retailers grew 393% year on year in the first quarter of 2026, following a 693% year-on-year jump over the November to December 2025 holiday period, per Adobe Digital Insights.
Two things are true at once here, and stats pages usually only tell you the first. The growth rate is extraordinary. The base is still small. Adobe has not published AI traffic as a share of total retail traffic, and independent measurement puts AI chatbots at well under 1% of Australian web traffic. A channel growing 138% off half a percent is still half a percent this quarter.
That is the honest read. It is also why we tell brands to fix conversion before chasing AI visibility, which is covered in our complete ecommerce SEO, AEO and GEO guide for Australian businesses.
Does AI search traffic actually convert?
Yes, and the reversal happened inside twelve months. Adobe found AI-referred visitors to US retail sites converted 54% better than non-AI visitors in May 2026. A year earlier, the same channel converted at roughly half the rate of everything else.
The March 2026 measurement is the one most commonly quoted: AI traffic converted 42% better than non-AI traffic, reversing from 38% worse a year earlier. Use the May figure if you want the latest, and the March figure if you want the one with the widest independent coverage.
Engagement moved with it. In May 2026, shoppers arriving from an AI referral spent 53% more time on retail sites and browsed 23% more pages per visit, which Adobe notes is roughly double the pages-per-visit gap it measured in March. Revenue per visit ran 37% above non-AI traffic in March 2026.
The mechanism is not mysterious. A shopper who asks an AI assistant which product suits them has already had the comparison conversation before they land. They arrive pre-qualified. Traditional search sends people who are still deciding.
One caveat worth keeping. Adobe compares AI traffic against all non-AI traffic combined, including paid search, email and affiliate, not against Google organic alone. It is vendor-reported and not independently audited.
How many Google searches show an AI Overview?
This is the number where published figures disagree most, and where citing the wrong one will get you challenged in a meeting.
SparkToro's study of January to April 2026 found AI Overviews appear on more than 20% of Google searches, with click-through rates dropping by nearly 60% when they do. The same study put zero-click searches at 68% in early 2026.
Other trackers report much higher. Estimates across 2026 studies range from roughly 15% to over 60% depending on the keyword sample, because informational and question-shaped queries trigger AI Overviews far more often than transactional ones. A dataset built from "how to" queries will always produce a bigger number than a dataset built from product searches.
For an ecommerce brand, the lower end is usually closer to your reality. Your money keywords are commercial and transactional, which trigger AI Overviews least often. Your blog and FAQ content sits in the high-exposure zone.
Google also confirmed at its 2026 I/O event that AI Mode passed one billion monthly users, with query volume more than doubling each quarter. SparkToro measured AI Mode at just 0.34% of searches during its study window, so the adoption curve and the search-share curve are not the same curve yet.
What this means in practice. Ranking below an AI Overview delivers a fraction of the clicks it used to. Being named inside one is a separate visibility layer from ranking, and it has to be earned separately. That distinction is the whole argument for ecommerce SEO and AI search work.
What does Australian online shopping look like in 2026?
Australians spent $82.6 billion online in 2025, up 14% year on year from $72.5 billion, according to the Australia Post eCommerce Report 2026. Online purchases now account for 24% of total retail spending.
A record 9.8 million households shopped online, roughly 82% of all households, and 41% shopped online at least fortnightly.
The behaviour underneath the growth matters more than the growth. Average basket size fell to $96 in 2025, about $10 below its 2020 level, while the average household bought from 16 different retailers across the year. Australians are buying more often, from more brands, in smaller amounts.
Australia Post's quarterly update for April to June 2026 shows the trend continuing. Online spend hit $21.9 billion for the quarter, up 14% year on year, while the average basket fell to a record low of $90. Online marketplaces took $5.1 billion and now account for 42% of all online purchases.
Smaller baskets and more retailers per household means loyalty is thinner and discovery matters more. That is the commercial reason AI-assisted discovery is worth tracking even while the traffic share is small.
Are Australians actually shopping with AI?
This is the most useful Australian dataset available, and it comes from Adyen rather than a search vendor. 64% of Australians have used AI assistants to help browse, compare or discover products, per the Adyen Index 2026 Australia Retail Report.
Then it stops. Only 26% of Australians are comfortable with AI completing a purchase, and just 5% are fully comfortable letting AI buy independently. Nearly two thirds, 64%, say they feel uncomfortable allowing AI to complete a purchase on their behalf.
Australian retailers are moving faster than Australian shoppers. Adyen found 95% of surveyed retailers are familiar with agentic commerce, where an AI agent buys on a customer's behalf.
Read those two numbers together and the strategy writes itself. Australians already let AI recommend. They do not yet let AI buy. The value of being named in an AI answer today is the recommendation, not the transaction, and the brand that gets recommended still has to convert the visit itself.
Hayley Fisher, Country Manager Australia and New Zealand at Adyen, framed the gap plainly. AI is becoming embedded across retail, she said, but "consumer trust has not advanced at the same pace."
Where does the money actually leak?
AI visibility sends more people to your store. It does not fix what happens when they arrive, and the arrival is where most Australian revenue is lost.
Baymard Institute's meta-analysis of 50 studies puts the average cart abandonment rate at 70.22%. Roughly seven in ten shoppers who add to cart leave without paying. That figure has held near 70% for over a decade.
Not all of it is fixable. Baymard's survey work finds about 42% of US online shoppers have abandoned because they were just browsing and not ready to buy. Strip that group out and what remains is friction you built.
Nearly one in five shoppers has abandoned a cart because the checkout was too long or too complicated. Baymard's testing suggests most checkouts could cut form elements by 20 to 60%, and that fixing documented checkout usability issues can deliver a 35.26% increase in conversion rate for the average large ecommerce site.
Be careful with the reason percentages. The widely quoted "48% abandon at unexpected extra costs" figure shifts depending on whether the just-browsing group is included in the base. Cite the abandonment rate confidently. Cite the reason breakdown with its methodology attached.
A store converting at 1.2% does not have an AI search problem. It has a checkout problem, and more traffic makes it more expensive. Our website design and build service starts there for exactly this reason.
Which numbers should an Australian store act on?
Three, in this order.
- 64% of Australians have used AI assistants to browse or compare products (Adyen, 2026). This is the number that justifies doing anything at all. It is Australian, it is recent, and it is about shopping rather than general AI use.
- AI-referred visitors converted 54% better than non-AI visitors (Adobe, US retail, May 2026). This is the number that justifies prioritising the channel over other organic work, with the caveat that it is US data.
- 70.22% average cart abandonment (Baymard). This is the number that decides sequencing. If your store leaks at this rate or worse, fix conversion before you spend on visibility.
The fastest way to make these numbers concrete is to check your own position rather than read someone else's benchmark. Our guide on how to check if ChatGPT recommends your brand walks through the five-minute version you can run today.
Want to know where your brand actually sits? Our free AI visibility audit tests your category queries across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Gemini, then walks you through the findings live on a call. No report to file away, no obligation. Book the audit.
Frequently asked questions
How many Australians use AI tools in 2026? 13.6 million Australians aged 14 and over, or 58% of that age group, used an AI tool in an average four-week period during the March quarter of 2026, according to Roy Morgan's Single Source survey of 14,646 people.
Which AI tool is most used in Australia? ChatGPT, by a wide margin. Roy Morgan reports 10.5 million Australian users (45% of people aged 14 and over) in the March quarter of 2026, ahead of Google Gemini at 5 million (21%) and Microsoft Copilot at 4 million (17%).
What percentage of Australians shop using AI? 64% of Australians have used AI assistants to browse, compare or discover products, according to the Adyen Index 2026 Australia Retail Report. Only 26% are comfortable letting AI complete a purchase, and 5% are fully comfortable letting AI buy independently.
Does AI search traffic convert better than normal traffic? On US retail sites, yes. Adobe Analytics found AI-referred traffic converted 54% better than non-AI traffic in May 2026, reversing from roughly half the non-AI rate a year earlier. No Australian dataset of comparable scale exists yet.
How much AI traffic should an Australian store expect right now? Very little in absolute terms. AI chatbots account for well under 1% of Australian web traffic, so a store seeing a fraction of a percent from AI referrals is normal in 2026. The growth rate matters more than the current share.
What percentage of Google searches show an AI Overview? Estimates range from about 15% to over 60% depending on the keyword sample. SparkToro's January to April 2026 study found AI Overviews on more than 20% of Google searches. Informational queries trigger them far more often than transactional ones.
Do AI Overviews reduce clicks? Yes. SparkToro found click-through rates drop by nearly 60% when an AI Overview appears, and measured zero-click searches at 68% in early 2026.
How much did Australians spend online in 2025? $82.6 billion, up 14% year on year, representing 24% of total retail spending. A record 9.8 million Australian households shopped online, per the Australia Post eCommerce Report 2026.
What is the average Australian online basket size? $96 across 2025, roughly $10 below 2020 levels. Australia Post's April to June 2026 quarter recorded a record low of $90, reflecting smaller and more frequent purchases.
What is the average cart abandonment rate? 70.22%, based on Baymard Institute's meta-analysis of 50 studies. About 42% of abandoners report they were just browsing, so the fixable share is smaller than the headline suggests.
Is agentic commerce happening in Australia yet? Retailers are ready before shoppers are. Adyen found 95% of surveyed Australian retailers are familiar with agentic commerce, while 64% of Australian consumers say they are uncomfortable letting AI complete a purchase for them.
Why do AI statistics differ so much between sources? Different age bases, survey windows, keyword samples and definitions of "use". Roy Morgan and Telsyte both measure Australian AI adoption honestly and report different totals for that reason. Always cite the source and the date alongside the number.
The bottom line
The Australian numbers say adoption is mainstream and buying is not. Shoppers let AI recommend, then decide for themselves, which means the brand that gets named still has to earn the sale on its own site. Track your citations and your conversion rate as one job rather than two. If you want to see where your brand currently sits across the five engines, book a free AI visibility audit and we will walk through it together.
