How Edible Brands Is Navigating AI Traffic and Replatforming for the Agentic Future
The ecommerce landscape is undergoing a seismic shift, and brands that fail to adapt risk being left behind. For Edible Brands, the parent company behind the beloved Edible Arrangements gift and treat concept, staying ahead of that shift means taking a hard look at where its customers are coming from — and increasingly, those customers are arriving via artificial intelligence platforms. According to Erica Randerson, Chief Digital Officer of Edible Brands, less than 10% of current web traffic originates from AI platforms. But that number is growing fast, and the company is making significant investments to capitalize on it.
A Small Percentage With Enormous Momentum
At first glance, sub-10% traffic from AI sources might not sound like a strategic priority. But Randerson frames it differently. Speaking with Digital Commerce 360, she explained that while the traffic arriving from platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity currently represents a small slice of Edible's overall web visits, it is growing at an exponential rate — and the trajectory only points upward.
"What we've noticed is, while the traffic we're getting from a ChatGPT or a Claude or Perplexity may still be a small percentage, it is growing at an exponential rate," Randerson told Digital Commerce 360. "And it's only going to continue. So we're really always looking for ways where we can tap into AI."
This forward-looking mindset is precisely what separates brands that thrive during technological transitions from those that scramble to catch up after the fact. Edible Brands is clearly positioning itself in the former category, choosing to invest now rather than react later.
Understanding Agentic AI and What It Means for Ecommerce
One of the more nuanced themes in Randerson's comments is the concept of agentic AI — a term that, as recently as early 2025, was causing confusion even among industry insiders. Randerson recalled attending a conference where the term was being bandied about freely, yet few in the room could articulate what it actually meant for their businesses.
"The room was just trying to figure out: What does that mean?" she recalled. "We all were thrown this new buzzword and what are we even dealing with, much less how are we optimizing for it?"
Agentic AI refers to AI systems that can act autonomously on behalf of users — searching the web, comparing products, placing orders, and completing multi-step tasks without constant human input. For ecommerce brands, this is a profound development. It means that in the not-too-distant future, a significant portion of purchase decisions may be facilitated not by a human browsing a website, but by an AI agent doing the shopping on that person's behalf.
For retailers like Edible Brands, this raises urgent questions: Is your product data structured in a way that AI agents can easily read and recommend it? Does your digital infrastructure support discovery by non-human browsing entities? Are you optimized not just for traditional search engines, but for the large language models and AI-driven recommendation layers that are increasingly influencing consumer behavior?
Replatforming as a Strategic Response
Edible Brands isn't just theorizing about these challenges — it's acting on them. Randerson confirmed that the company is making significant investments in its technology and data infrastructure, with replatforming as a key component of that effort. This move signals a recognition that legacy systems built for a pre-AI ecommerce environment may not be equipped to meet the demands of an agentic future.
Replatforming is rarely a simple undertaking. It involves migrating to new content management systems, commerce platforms, or data architectures that offer greater flexibility, improved API connectivity, and richer structured data capabilities. For a brand like Edible, which operates across franchise locations and multiple digital touchpoints, ensuring consistency and discoverability across all of those surfaces is a complex but essential task.
The goal, according to Randerson, is to ensure that omnichannel doesn't stagnate within its historical definition. As AI platforms become a legitimate new channel through which customers discover and purchase products, omnichannel strategy must evolve to include them.
Optimizing for AI Discovery: What Brands Can Learn
Edible Brands' approach offers a useful blueprint for other ecommerce players wrestling with the same questions. There are several strategic pillars worth considering as AI-driven traffic continues to grow.
- Invest in structured data: AI platforms rely heavily on well-organized, machine-readable data. Schema markup, clean product feeds, and structured content make it easier for AI agents to surface your brand accurately in recommendations.
- Monitor AI referral traffic: Just as brands track organic search, paid, and social traffic, AI platform referrals should be tracked and analyzed. Understanding what queries lead users to your site via ChatGPT or Perplexity can inform content and optimization strategies.
- Create authoritative, comprehensive content: Large language models are trained on and continue to reference high-quality, authoritative web content. Brands that invest in deep, well-structured editorial content are more likely to be cited and recommended by AI systems.
- Audit your tech stack for AI readiness: Legacy platforms may not support the API integrations or data formats that AI shopping agents require. A technology audit can reveal gaps and guide replatforming decisions.
- Think beyond traditional SEO: While traditional search engine optimization remains essential, brands should begin exploring AI Engine Optimization (AEO) — the emerging practice of ensuring your brand, products, and content are well-represented in AI-generated responses.
The Signals Are Clear — The Time to Act Is Now
Randerson's perspective is grounded in a pragmatic acknowledgment that the signals are already there. AI-driven traffic is real, it is measurable, and it is growing. Waiting for that traffic to become a dominant share before acting would mean missing a critical window to build infrastructure, optimize content, and establish brand presence within AI recommendation ecosystems before the competition catches on.
Edible Brands, ranked No. 182 in Digital Commerce 360's Top 2000 Database of North America's largest online retailers by annual ecommerce sales, is not a brand that can afford to be complacent. Its scale means the stakes are high — but its proactive stance suggests it understands exactly what's at play.
Conclusion: Redefining Omnichannel for the AI Era
The story of Edible Brands and its AI traffic strategy is ultimately a story about adaptation. The brands that will lead ecommerce in the next decade won't necessarily be the ones with the biggest budgets — they'll be the ones that recognized the signs of change early, invested in the right infrastructure, and built discovery strategies that account for how consumers actually find and buy products in an AI-mediated world. Edible Brands appears to be one of those brands, and its journey offers valuable lessons for any retailer willing to pay attention.