Costco boosts AI search to drive shoppers to key product pages

Costco is using AI search to push shoppers to the right product pages before they reach a warehouse, and the early traffic is converting at the highest rate of any source feeding its site. In a June 29 analysis, Zacks said the company’s AI-generated traffic grew at a triple-digit rate in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, even though it remained a small share of total visits.

The digital lift sits on top of a much larger membership engine. Costco said in its May 28 third-quarter fiscal 2026 release that net sales rose 11.6% to $69.15 billion, net income climbed 15.2% to $2.19 billion, and paid members reached 82.9 million. Site and app traffic rose 37% year over year in the quarter, while digitally enabled comparable sales increased 21.5%, showing that more of the buying journey is already moving through Costco’s screens before it reaches the warehouse floor.

That shift matters for the people on the clock. A shopper who has already compared models online is more likely to walk in asking about a specific washer, refrigerator, or tire package, not just the aisle location. Costco has been improving product pages so large language models can surface details such as delivery, installation, haul-away, road hazard coverage, and nitrogen, which makes those pages more useful for items where the full value is bigger than the sticker price. Costco Logistics offers in-home delivery and in-home installation for select items bought on Costco.com, and those services are part of the pitch on categories like appliances and tires.

For front-end assistants, stockers, forklift operators, and supervisors, that can cut down on routine “where is it?” questions, but it also raises the bar on what members expect when they arrive. If a page says a service is included, the warehouse has to be ready to explain it, fulfill it, or correct it. That puts more weight on inventory accuracy, item-page quality, and the handoff between merchandising, sales support, and the departments that actually touch the product.

Costco has described its AI adoption as early-stage in prior earnings discussions, but by fiscal 2026 it is pairing search with personalization, app upgrades, and logistics tools to move more of the shopping trip online first. For warehouse workers, the change is not abstract: it reshapes which questions come to the front end, which items spike in demand, and how much detail members expect from every conversation.