Key takeaways:
- Online Labels, Nixon, Fashionphile, Everlane and Brooklinen lead the AI Commerce Rankings, compiled by Digital Commerce 360 and ReFiBuy. None of them ranks near the top of the Top 1000 by online sales.
- ChatGPT accounts for more than 80% of AI-referred retail traffic today, making source diversity one of the index’s four scored signals.
- The average readiness score across all 1000 retailers is 41.9 out of 100. Only 20 retailers scored above 60.
The #814 retailer by online sales just claimed the top spot in AI readiness in the AI Commerce Rankings, a new quarterly benchmark by Digital Commerce 360 and ReFiBuy.
A watch brand and a luxury resale shop trail close behind, while some of the biggest names in U.S. ecommerce are sitting in the bottom half of the new quarterly benchmark that scores every retailer in the Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000 on readiness for AI shopping.
The results from the first edition, published alongside the 2026 Top 1000 report, show that the retailers best positioned for the next era of ecommerce are not necessarily those that dominated the last one.
A New Benchmark for a New Era of Shopping
For more than two decades, the Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000 has ranked retailers by estimated online sales. The AI Commerce Rankings add a different question: whether a retailer’s product data is ready for AI shopping agents to read, interpret and recommend.
“The Top 1000 has always been one of the most important scoreboards in ecommerce,” said Scot Wingo, CEO and co-founder of ReFiBuy, in a statement. “For years, it helped operators understand who was winning online. But AI shopping agents are already changing how shoppers find and evaluate products, and most retailers do not yet know whether their catalogs are ready. Estimated online sales show who won the last era of ecommerce. The AI Commerce Rankings show who is positioned to win the next one.”
ReFiBuy co-developed the methodology and produced the underlying data and scoring. Digital Commerce 360 contributed the retailer universe and published the results in the 2026 Top 1000 report.
How the Rankings Are Scored
Each retailer receives a readiness score from zero to 100, built from four signals that reflect what AI shopping agents actually encounter when they reach a catalog.
Bot friendliness measures whether AI shopping agents can access, read and transact with a retailer’s catalog, including support for agentic commerce protocols like Universal Cart Protocol (UCP) and Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP). AI source traffic captures how much traffic a retailer already receives from answer engines. Diversity of AI sources scores whether that traffic spans multiple engines or concentrates on a single one. 90-day momentum tracks whether AI traffic is growing or declining over the trailing quarter, rather than offering a single point-in-time snapshot.
Scores will be recalculated every quarter as catalogs and answer engines evolve. The methodology itself is re-evaluated on the same cadence, with each edition documenting any changes to the algorithm.
One important caveat: a low score doesn’t mean a retailer has no AI strategy in progress. It means AI shopping agents can’t yet see the results of that work. Every input is measured from what agents actually observe.
What the First Edition Found
AI readiness doesn’t follow sales scale:
- Online Labels, a manufacturer and supplier of blank and custom-printed labels, stickers and packaging, ranked No. 814 by online sales and leads the AI index with a readiness score of 71.8.
- Nixon, a watch brand ranked No. 722 by sales, scores 71.1.
- Fashionphile, a luxury handbag reseller at No. 826 by sales, comes in third at 70.9.
- Everlane (No. 264 by sales) and Brooklinen (No. 331 by sales) rounds out the top five with scores of 70.4 and 68.6, respectively.
What Categories Lead the AI Readiness Rankings
Office supplies leads all 15 categories with an average readiness score of 47.4. The category is small but punches above its weight, pairing the highest average score with the highest AI traffic penetration in the index.
Jewelry ranks second at 45, showing the most diversified answer-engine visibility of any category. Hardware and home improvement comes in third at 44.8, led by niche specialists rather than household names.
At the other end, food and beverage scores 37.2, the lowest in the index. The category also has the lowest AI traffic penetration, even though food and grocery lead consumer shopping overall. One top-10 retailer by online sales ranks below No. 550 on AI readiness.
Mass merchant sits at 38.5. The average mass merchant sits 179 places lower on AI readiness than on online sales rank, the widest gap of any category.
Automotive presents a different kind of data point: it’s the only category where not one retailer has verified UCP support, yet AI traffic penetration runs above the index average. That combination makes it the most open field in the rankings.
ChatGPT’s Dominance
ChatGPT accounts for more than 80% of AI-referred retail traffic in the first edition. That concentration is why source diversity counts as a scored signal. Retailers that rely on a single engine for AI traffic carry meaningful platform risk as the answer engine landscape continues to shift. Google Gemini, Alexa for Shopping and other emerging destinations are already influencing product discovery, and their share will change.
Across all 1,000 retailers, the average readiness score is 41.9 and the median is 44.1. Only 20 retailers score above 60. No retailer scores above 71.8. The index’s first edition covers nearly 109 million AI-source visits to retailers in the Top 1000, yet only a fraction of those retailers have verified UCP status.
