AI-referred sessions to merchant storefronts grew 197% year over year in the second quarter, Shopify said. Organic search traffic also increased 12%, according to new commerce data the company released this week. AI-referred shoppers converted at roughly twice the rate of organic visitors in research-intensive product categories. But organic search remained the largest source of referral traffic for Shopify merchants. AI-referred sessions and orders both roughly tripled from a year earlier across nearly every product category Shopify tracks.