AI is Rewriting How Consumers Discover Brands and Raising the Stakes for Experience and Loyalty

NEW YORK – January 29th, 2026 – AI’s growing influence is reshaping how people discover and evaluate brands. Discovery is shifting upstream, attention is getting more expensive, and digital experiences are now judged in seconds. New data from Contentsquare’s 2026 Digital Experience Benchmarks, based on 99 billion sessions analyzed, shows that as journeys shorten and expectations rise, even small experience improvements can make the difference between fleeting visits and lasting loyalty. 

Discovery is shifting — and AI is changing the mix

AI-referred sources entered the traffic mix this year and grew rapidly, up +632%, though they still account for just 0.2% of total traffic in Q4. While AI’s direct share remains small, its influence is already reshaping more established channels. As AI Overviews increasingly deliver answers without clicks, organic search traffic declined –9%, signaling a structural shift in how consumers reach brands.

Importantly, visitors influenced by AI are exhibiting increased  intent. Conversion performance reinforces this shift. AI-referred traffic conversion rates rose +55% year over year to 1.3%, beginning to behave like more established, high-intent channels such as search. AI is not just changing where discovery happens — it is shaping who arrives and how ready they are to act. Also, bounce rates improved across AI-influenced sources, with AI-referred visits bouncing –5% less, alongside improvements in paid search (–3%) and organic search (–4%).

The cost of attention keeps climbing

Brands are paying more for fewer visits. Over the past three years, the cost of a single visit has risen +30%, with a +9% increase YoY, even as overall traffic fell –4% compared to last year. With rising acquisition costs, every visit — and every experience — matters more than ever.

Holding that attention is getting harder and visitors are less forgiving

Once on site, visitors are spending –7% less time, underscoring how quickly journeys now succeed or fail. Attention windows are shorter, and tolerance for friction is lower. 

Yet the benchmark shows that small improvements have outsized impact. Reducing rage clicks per page by just 1.5 percentage points drives deeper engagement, including +1 additional page viewed per session. In an environment of compressed attention, incremental experience gains now compound faster.

Conversations are becoming decisive brand moments

Every interaction matters. When humans and AI bots work together, 57% of customer inquiries are resolved, compared to just 29% with bot-only support. Customer sentiment is proving to be critical to measure during the experience. Despite many conversations starting negatively, especially in email (64%), interactions that successfully improve sentiment resolve more than twice as often (67% vs. 28%), highlighting the opportunity to actively turn experiences around. These moments don’t just fix problems; they actively shape how customers perceive, trust, and return to a brand.

Brands now operate in a world of dual audiences — humans and AI agents. That changes the rules. AI traffic is small today, but its intent signal is already outsized. Success today is defined by how quickly brands can detect experience gaps, friction, and mismatches — and fix them before customers even notice. Great customer experience isn’t loud. It’s precise. It’s relentless. And it’s built by removing small irritants until the experience simply works.

Jean-Christophe Pitié

Chief Marketing and Partnerships Officer at Contentsquare

Methodology 

Contentsquare's 2026 Digital Experience Benchmarks Report analyzed more than 99 billion sessions, 500 billion page views, 22 million customer service conversations and 6,500 websites across the globe. The analysis compares Q4 2024 vs. Q4 2025 (October-December) insights. Conversion benchmarks include only sites that collect conversion events (Manufacturing, Retail, Telecommunications, Travel & Hospitality). Strict aggregation measures are employed to ensure anonymity.

Contact: 

press@contentsquare.com