Is the AI shopping assistant market growing or shrinking?
Miles FosterOwner and tester, RankDude
The answer▼ Shrinkingbut visits are up 11% over the last six months
- Visits, year on year, without Phia
- -12%
- Visits, last six months
- +11%
- Name searches vs October 2025
- -44%
Every month I add up the Google visits to the 16 AI shopping assistant sites I track (DataForSEO estimates) and how often people in the US search for them by name (Google Ads). In September 2026 they got about 143,016 visits. Much of the year’s change is one site, Phia; without it, visits are down 12% on a year ago.
The total hides very different stories: one site grew 503% in a year while another lost 61% of its visits. See who grew and who shrank, the visits month by month and the name searches, plus what I expect for October 2026.
AI shopping assistant market demand: key numbers, September 2026
Four numbers for September 2026. Visits mean visits from Google search to the 16 tracked sites. Tap one for the detail below.
- Visits from Google143Kvisits+54% vs a year ago
- Name searches, US8.3Ksearches-44% vs October 2025
- Top five sites89.8%of visitsfastest grower: Phia
- Expected in October140Kvisitslikely 129K to 152K
- The AI shopping assistant market is shrinking as of September 2026, but visits are up 11% over the last six months.
- The 16 AI shopping assistant sites RankDude tracks got 143,016 visits from Google search in September 2026, 54% more visits than in September 2025, or 12% fewer without Phia.
- People in the US searched Google for these sites by name 8,270 times in September 2026, 44% fewer searches than in October 2025.
- The five most-visited AI shopping assistant sites get 89.8% of all visits.
- Fastest-growing AI shopping assistant site over the year: Phia, +503% (11.9K to 71.7K visits a month).
- Steepest fall over the year: Manifest AI, -61% (29.8K to 11.6K visits a month).
- Forecast for October 2026: about 140K visits, likely between 129K and 152K.
Source: DataForSEO visit estimates and Google Ads search data, published 15 October 2026 by RankDude.
1.Are more people visiting AI shopping assistant sites than a year ago?
Up 54% on a year ago; up 5% on August 2026
Only because of Phia. The 16 tracked AI shopping assistant sites got 143,016 visits from Google search in September 2026. That is 54% more visits than in September 2025, or 12% fewer without Phia, and 5% more visits than in August 2026.
September 2026 is the highest month of the last two years. In the US, visits were 70,623, up 153% on a year ago.
WorldVisits a month to AI shopping assistant sites, worldwide, two years
Source: DataForSEO, Google search visits, all tracked sites.
Worldwide, this month
143K
+54.4% on a year ago
United States, this month
70.6K
+152.9% on a year ago
Two-year high
143K
September 2026
US share of visits
49.4%
of worldwide visits
Miles explains
More visits than a year ago means new people are still finding AI shopping assistant sites through Google. Most of that growth is one site, Phia; without it, visits are down 12% on a year ago.
2.Are people searching for AI shopping assistant sites by name?
Down 44% on October 2025; 8.3K name searches a month in the US
Fewer than before. People in the US searched Google for the names of the counted AI shopping assistant sites 8,270 times in September 2026, 44% fewer searches than in October 2025. Someone who searches a site’s name already knows it, so this is the clearest sign of people coming back on purpose. The term “ai shopping assistants” itself gets about 1,300 US searches a month (Google Ads, 12-month average).
USName searches a month for AI shopping assistant sites, US
Source: Google Ads via DataForSEO, to September 2026.
USMost searched AI shopping assistant sites by name, searches a month
Phia4.4K a month
ShopSavvy1.3K a month
Manifest AI590 a month
Rep AI480 a month
Zoovu320 a month
Alhena AI260 a month
Miles explains
Name searches are down, so fewer people are coming back on purpose. Better Google rankings will not fix that.
3.Which AI shopping assistant sites grew, and which shrank?
The five most-visited sites hold 89.8% of all visits; the ten most-visited hold 98.1%
The five most-visited AI shopping assistant sites get 89.8% of all visits, so one of them winning or losing a big Google ranking moves the whole total. Fastest grower over the year: Phia, from 11,881 to 71,661 visits (+503%). Steepest fall: Manifest AI, from 29,808 to 11,604 visits (-61%).
Growing fastest, year on year
- Phia71.7K visits+503%
Alta20.1K visits+114%- ShopSavvy20.6K visits+82%
Falling fastest, year on year
- Manifest AI11.6K visits-61%
Vetted4.6K visits-34%
Luigi's Box4.1K visits-25%
Source: DataForSEO. Sites with 5,000+ visits a year ago.