As AI-Referred Retail Traffic Surges 393%, ChannelEngine Launches Tools to Help Marketplace Sellers Stay Visible

ChannelEngine's Spring '26 Release introduces AI-powered product data generation and early connections to agentic commerce platforms, including Google AI Mode and Microsoft Copilot

LEIDEN, Netherlands and NEW YORK, May 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- ChannelEngine today announced its Spring '26 Release, designed for a marketplace landscape increasingly shaped by AI agents and algorithms. These systems now decide which products get discovered, recommended, and purchased. For most marketplace sellers, their product data isn't ready for it.

Keeping product data complete and formatted for every channel has always been a challenge for marketplace sellers, and many still do it manually, updating thousands of SKUs one by one. That was already unsustainable before AI-powered shopping surfaces raised the bar further. Now, products with thin or incomplete data don't get delisted. They just never get shown.

The scale of that shift is already measurable. According to Adobe Analytics, traffic from AI sources to U.S. retail sites grew 393% year over year in Q1 2026, and that traffic is now converting 42% better than non-AI sources. The sellers showing up in those results have one thing in common: complete, structured product data.

ChannelEngine's AI Attribute Builder closes that gap. It lets sellers generate and enrich product attributes using plain-language AI prompts. Sellers describe what they need, select which products to run it on, and AI generates the values across the catalog. That means filling in missing product identifiers, generating detailed specifications, and producing the kind of structured data that AI shopping agents need to compare and recommend products at scale.

The Spring '26 Release also introduces early connections to the protocols at the center of agentic commerce: UCP, the open standard co-developed by Google and Shopify, and now adopted by Microsoft Copilot; ACP, the protocol underpinning ChatGPT's shopping capabilities, and PayPal's LLM checkout. These integrations are early-stage, but they give ChannelEngine customers a foothold in agentic commerce channels as those platforms continue to mature.

Beyond product data, the release addresses a persistent challenge for multichannel sellers: the operational blind spots that multiply as the number of channels and warehouses grows. Stock management has been redesigned to include configurable rules at the warehouse, channel, and product levels. Sellers now have visibility into why specific products aren't listed on a given marketplace, can coordinate product launches across teams from a single place, and can catch address and pricing errors before they reach customers.

Rounding out the release are 17 new marketplace and sales channel integrations across EMEA, the US, and Asia-Pacific, including Home Depot, Best Buy US, Tesco, and Bloomingdale's, plus Shopware as a new webstore channel and EDI as a new connection type.

"The way products get discovered and sold is fundamentally changing," said Jorrit Steinz, CEO and Founder of ChannelEngine. "Marketplace algorithms already decide what gets visibility. AI agents will decide what gets bought. Sellers who treat product data as an operational afterthought will fall behind. This release helps them get ahead of that shift."

For more details on the Spring '26 Release, visit: https://www.channelengine.com/product-spring-release-2026

About ChannelEngine

ChannelEngine is a marketplace integration platform that connects brands and retailers to more than 1,300 global marketplaces, social commerce platforms, and agentic commerce channels. The platform combines automation and AI to manage product listings, pricing, inventory, orders, and returns across channels, integrating directly with existing ERP, PIM, fulfillment, and other ecommerce systems. With offices in Leiden, New York, Toronto, Berlin, Paris, Dubai, and Singapore, ChannelEngine helps businesses grow their multichannel operations without adding headcount. Trusted by Samsung, Salomon, Jockey, Unilever, LG Electronics, Clarks, and Nestlé.

Media contact: Ronjini Joshua | 949-295-9779 | [email protected]

SOURCE ChannelEngine