The Digital Experience Benchmark 2027 barometer by Fasterize shows that optimization for search engines is widespread, while optimization for AI assistants remains marginal. Out of 1,469 sites crawled in October 2026, 61% of sites reach the threshold of 80 out of 100 on the Search pillar, compared to 9% on AI Search.
Fasterize cross-references a crawl of these sites, data from Google’s Chrome UX Report, and audience estimates from Similarweb. Each site is scored on five pillars: Search, AI Search, Experience, Accessibility, and AI Agents. The study does not present the first two as opposites, but it emphasizes that AI robots do not read a page like Googlebot. Most of them read the raw code, ignore what displays afterward, and favor structured content that is easy to extract. The citability score for AI Search thus falls to 17 out of 100, and nearly two out of three sites do not tag any FAQs.
A channel still discreet, but influential before the click
In terms of volume, AI assistants remain modest. Out of 498 sites measured by Similarweb in August 2026, they send a median of 2 visits for every 100 from organic search, which remains the primary traffic source for 6 out of 10 sites. According to the study, however, assistants intervene before the visit, when they compare and recommend brands, an influence that does not always leave a trace in analytics tools. In an A/B test conducted on a retail site, with over 850,000 visits in August and September 2026, site acceleration improved conversion by 24% for visitors coming from AIs, compared to 8% for other channels. Fasterize presents this result as a trend from a single test.
Blocking AI robots, a decision to be arbitrated
Analysis of 1,256 robots.txt files, the file that tells robots which pages they can visit, reveals that one in ten sites blocks access to at least one AI robot. In six out of ten cases, only training robots are targeted. Search and consultation robots are also blocked in the other cases. Retail is the most restrictive sector, with 13% of sites blocking at least one AI robot, ahead of luxury (11%), travel (6%), and banking and insurance (3%). In the auto sector, the proportion reaches one in three sites. According to the study, the setting sometimes results from an anti-robot tool configured by default. Fasterize recommends treating this access as a branding choice, shared between marketing, SEO, and security.
AI Agents: offers that machines struggle to read
Out of 786 e-commerce sites with product pages, 24% offer no structured data on price, currency, or availability, and more than one in three merchants in luxury. Fasterize cites Shopify, which indicated during its Q2 2026 earnings call that AI searches relying on structured product data convert twice as well as those merely reading pages. Prices and stock levels only appear after JavaScript execution for nearly one in two merchants. According to sources cited by the study, the main AI robots outside of Google do not execute this code. Three out of four sites also have forms that agents cannot fill out, with travel being the most affected sector.
The most visited sites are no exception. Compared to challengers ranked from 101st to 500th place, the top 100 audience leaders are well optimized for Search at 59%, versus 65% for challengers. On AI Search, no significant difference appears. Overall, only 3% of sites in the panel exceed 80 on all five pillars simultaneously.
