Brands and retailers can see how many consumers arrive from AI platforms. What they cannot yet see is whether those consumers find the right products, receive accurate recommendations, and complete a purchase, or where in that journey they drop off.
NIQ and Similarweb announced a collaboration on September 2, to build the measurement infrastructure that closes that gap.
According to the press release, the solution tracks five stages of the AI commerce journey: consumer intent inside AI platforms, product visibility in AI recommendations, content optimization of what AI surfaces, AI-driven traffic to product pages, and conversion from that traffic into sales. Together the five stages cover the full commercial funnel
"AI is becoming a new commerce channel, and NIQ intends to make it measurable," said Troy Treangen, Chief AI and Product Officer at NIQ. "Our clients want to know where AI is already influencing their business, how quickly that influence is growing and what they should do about it."
The collaboration brings together two specific and complementary data capabilities that neither company could deploy alone. Similarweb tracks digital consumer behavior across AI platforms including ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Perplexity, and Claude, giving the solution visibility into what consumers are doing inside AI interfaces.
NIQ contributes product intelligence, consumer behavior data, and retail sales measurement, giving the solution visibility into what happens after the AI interaction, when the consumer reaches the product page or completes a purchase.
The combination addresses a specific and growing commercial problem. Similarweb's own data, published two weeks prior to this announcement, shows that 26% of ChatGPT responses served to Free and Go tier users already carry a sponsored ad, and nearly 30% of ad-eligible Google AI Mode queries show ads.
AI platforms are already a commercial channel at measurable scale. What brands and retailers currently lack is the ability to connect their AI platform visibility to their actual sales outcomes.
The NIQ-Similarweb solution is designed to fill that gap, providing the same kind of end-to-end attribution that brands have had for search and social channels for years, applied to the AI commerce channel now emerging alongside them.
An initial version is planned for Q4 2026 in select product categories and markets, with broader expansion to follow. Specific launch categories and markets were not disclosed.