Costco climbs 182 places as retail’s biggest sellers trail in ReFiBuy and Digital Commerce 360’s Q3 AI readiness benchmark.

RALEIGH, NC / ACCESS Newswire / November 12, 2026 / ReFiBuy, the company that invented the concept of Agentic Commerce Optimization (ACO), today published the Q3 2026 edition of the AI1000. Co-developed with Digital Commerce 360, the quarterly benchmark is the definitive index of AI shopping readiness across North America’s 1,000 leading online retailers.

The index combines AI traffic measures with bot-access and commerce-protocol signals to benchmark how well retailers are positioned to compete as AI shopping agents increasingly shape which products shoppers consider and which retailers win their business.

What the Q3 Index Shows

The Q3 AI1000 records an average score of 39.9 out of 100 across 1,000 retailers. Three findings stand out:

Bot access contributed to the biggest rank gains. Costco leads with a 182-place climb, followed by GoPro at 173 places and Scheels at 168. All three gained points for bot access alongside higher AI traffic scores. Costco, No. 7 by online sales, now ranks No. 325 in the AI1000.

Scale does not guarantee AI readiness. Only 13 of the 100 largest online retailers rank in the AI1000 top 100. For the third consecutive edition, all five AI1000 leaders sit outside the sales top 100. Nixon, No. 722 by online sales, retains No. 1 in AI readiness, followed by Online Labels, Everlane, CustomInk, and Brooklinen.

UCP detection varies sharply by category. Q3 scans detected Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) endpoints at 55% of jewelry retailers (22 of 40), compared with 3% of automotive parts and accessories retailers (1 of 35) and roughly one in three retailers overall. UCP gives AI shopping agents a standard way to connect with retailers’ commerce systems and complete checkout on a shopper’s behalf.

Q3 access checks across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity also found retailers that were reachable by one agent but blocked for another.

“We’re seeing a clear line being drawn in the sand with some retail platforms like Amazon and eBay purposely blocking bots due to a strategic decision,” said Scot Wingo, CEO and co-founder of ReFiBuy. “There’s a larger cohort of retailers that are blocking bots, and it’s not clear whether that’s a strategic decision or something decided by their IT team or infrastructure layer without the commerce side of the business being aware. That blocking will significantly reduce discovery traffic and access to a large chunk of consumers for Holiday 2026.”

Set Access and Product Data Priorities in Q4

Search crawlers, model-training crawlers, and shopping agents serve different purposes. Commerce and security teams should set permissions for each activity and test whether approved agents can retrieve useful product data.

Product pages and feeds give retailers complementary ways to supply that data. Across both, retailers need accurate, consistent product data, including current availability and delivery terms for holiday shoppers.

ReFiBuy helps commerce teams build on existing catalog investments by identifying gaps, generating enrichments for review, and distributing enriched product data across selling surfaces. Ongoing monitoring checks how agents discover and evaluate products after those updates.

See Where Your Company Stands

Retailers in the index can access their personalized Q3 AI1000 report at refibuy.ai/ai1000 by verifying a work email.

Commerce leaders can request an ACO audit from ReFiBuy to identify gaps in their product catalog and prioritize product data improvements for 2027.

About ReFiBuy

ReFiBuy is the Agentic Commerce Optimization (ACO) platform trusted by the world’s leading brands and retailers to help them compete wherever AI shopping agents shape product discovery and purchase. Its Commerce Intelligence Engine continuously monitors how agents find and evaluate products, identifies product data gaps, and generates and distributes approved enrichments to improve eligibility for discovery and recommendation. Founded by ecommerce veterans from ChannelAdvisor, Walmart, and MikMak, ReFiBuy is building the commerce intelligence layer for the agentic era. Learn more at refibuy.ai.

Media Contact

Brian Chapman
VP, Growth
ReFiBuy
brian@refibuy.ai

SOURCE: ReFiBuy

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