New joint report reveals how AI, social media and search are reshaping the path to purchase
NEW YORK, Sept. 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Emplifi, an AI-powered social media management platform, today unveiled The Social Search and AI Visibility Report, developed in partnership with Semrush, an Adobe company, revealing how consumers are increasingly discovering, researching and validating products across social media, AI tools and online communities rather than relying on traditional search alone.
The report combines Emplifi's consumer research with Semrush's proprietary search, traffic, and AI visibility data. Together, it gives marketers a comprehensive view of how the modern discovery journey is evolving and what brands must do to remain visible.
According to the report, today's consumers move fluidly between social platforms, AI assistants, search engines and trusted communities before making a purchase. Rather than following a linear path, shoppers increasingly discover products on social media, compare options using AI tools and turn to Reddit for authentic reviews and recommendations before deciding what to buy. Nearly four in ten consumers already rank social media among their top three product discovery channels, making it the single highest-ranked discovery source ahead of retail websites, search engines and email. The prominence of social media also points to the growing role of user-generated content and peer perspectives in how consumers explore products.
"We're entering a new era of digital discovery where visibility is earned across an ecosystem, not a single channel," said Susan Ganeshan, Chief Marketing Officer, Emplifi. "Consumers are blending AI with authentic human recommendations to make more confident purchasing decisions, and brands need to be present in both. Organizations that rethink how they approach discovery today will build a lasting competitive advantage tomorrow."
Among the report's key findings:
- 66% of consumers have used AI tools to research products or discover gift ideas, while 11% now begin their product research directly with an AI tool
- 85% trust product recommendations shared by other Reddit users
- More than one in four consumers (26%) intentionally add "Reddit" to product searches to find authentic customer opinions
- Among consumers who have made a social commerce purchase, 47% have done so through Instagram, followed by Reddit (18%) and Pinterest (17%), underscoring that different platforms play different roles in the customer journey
The consumer behavior identified by Emplifi is reinforced by industry-leading search intelligence from Semrush, which shows AI is rapidly becoming a meaningful discovery channel.
According to Semrush's analysis:
- Combined estimated US monthly visits to five leading LLM platforms rose from approximately 2.3 million in June 2023 to 1.33 billion in June 2026-an increase of nearly 580 times
- AI referrals to 30 major US retailers have increased 190 times over the same period
- AI referral traffic to the 30-domain retail basket now equals an estimated 8% of its social referral traffic, up from just 0.04% three years ago.
- In a traffic-weighted June 2026 snapshot across eight major US retailers, TikTok accounted for approximately 0.5% of outbound social-referral visits, consistent with discovery occurring largely within the platform and illustrating the limitations of click-based attribution.
The report also highlights Reddit's growing role at the intersection of search, community and AI. While consumers increasingly rely on Reddit to validate purchasing decisions, Semrush found that search referrals to Reddit have tripled since 2023, reaching 1.31 billion monthly visits in the US, while AI-referred visits to Reddit have grown 76 times. In the query sample, broad product-research searches frequently triggered Google AI Overviews, while searches explicitly containing 'Reddit' rarely did-a pattern consistent with users seeking community perspectives alongside AI-generated answers.
"Visibility has become far more complex than rankings on a search results page. Brands now need to understand how they're discovered across AI search, including LLMs, social media platforms and trusted communities, because that's where buying decisions are increasingly influenced," said Fernando Angulo, Senior Market Research Manager at Semrush, an Adobe company. "The marketers who measure and optimize across these connected surfaces will be best positioned for strong brand visibility as AI continues to reshape digital discovery."
As AI increasingly shapes the research phase of the buying journey and consumers continue to seek authentic opinions before making purchase decisions, the report concludes that brands should stop treating SEO, social media, and AI as separate disciplines. Instead, organizations should build integrated discovery strategies that improve visibility wherever consumers search, compare, and validate products.
The full Social Search and AI Visibility Report is available to download here.
About Emplifi
Emplifi is the leading platform unifying AI-powered social media management, commerce, and customer care for more than 22,000 brands worldwide. Powered by Fuel AI, built on more than 5T of data, and recognized as a leader by leading industry analysts, Emplifi helps enterprise teams manage, publish, and optimize social media at scale, turning every post, campaign, and customer interaction into a measurable business outcome.
About Semrush
Semrush, an Adobe company, is the leading brand visibility platform, empowering marketers to command their online presence and create measurable impact. Built on the industry's most expansive proprietary dataset, Semrush delivers AI-driven insights across SEO, Agentic Search Optimization, content marketing, paid media, and social strategy. Used by over 28 million users globally, Semrush provides the competitive intelligence needed to win visibility in an evolving digital landscape. Learn more at semrush.com.
Media contact:
Jordan Lukes, Corporate Communications Director, Emplifi
jordan.lukes@emplifi.io
Alyssa Jaffer, Product PR Lead
pr@semrush.com
Methodology
Emplifi consumer research
Data is drawn from an online survey of 1,638 consumers across the US (n=785) and UK (n=853), conducted by Emplifi in partnership with Alchemer between April 14 and May 1, 2026. All respondents were aged 18 to 65 and active on at least two major social media platforms at least twice per week. A quota subgroup of Reddit users was included (n=865). Data was analyzed at a 95% confidence level. Statistically significant differences between markets are noted throughout the report.
Semrush data
Semrush figures were retrieved via the Semrush API across two datasets. Traffic and channel data (LLM-platform growth, per-platform social-referral share, and social- and AI-referral traffic to retail) come from Semrush .Trends / Traffic & Market Toolkit estimated-visits data, sampled at June 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 and broken out by acquisition channel (direct, referral, organic and paid search, social, email, and AI assistants / AI search). Retail figures represent an aggregated basket of 30 leading US e-commerce domains (with a parallel UK pull of the same basket for geographic comparison); traffic values are modeled estimates rather than log-level counts. The per-platform social-referral split (Page 4) was derived from the Traffic Sources report, filtered to the social channel and broken out by referring domain, across an 8-retailer US basket for June 2026, with referring sub-domains consolidated to their parent platform and shares reported traffic-weighted. Search-behavior data (Reddit-appended query prevalence, the "best [X]" vs "[X] reddit" comparison, and AI Overview incidence on commercial queries) come from Semrush Keyword Analytics for the US Google database; longitudinal keyword volumes were sampled at June 2023-2026 intervals, with the "best [X]" vs "[X] reddit" comparison refreshed against the September 2026 Semrush US database (search volume in Semrush is a rolling 12-month average recalculated monthly, and a dated export of the September 2026 pull is held on file). AI Overview presence was measured across intent-stratified samples of commercial and product queries using the Semrush SERP-features signal. Aggregate figures for AI Overview trigger rates, zero-click behavior, and cross-channel traffic growth are drawn from Semrush's published studies . the Traffic Channel Mix Study (50,000+ websites, 17 industries, April 2026). Selected AI mention/citation context is drawn from the Semrush AI Visibility Index 2026 (with Adobe), a study of 126M US AI-search prompts across ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews (January-April 2026).
Prepared July 2026. Original first-party pulls form the report's spine; published Semrush studies and the AI Visibility Index are used as corroboration. Figures can be refreshed or extended (additional markets, wider retail baskets, a per-platform longitudinal social split, or a larger AIO query set) on request.
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