Return of Investment From AI [ Extremely happy to share ]
Why read an earnings call? [ Costco's Q4 FY2026 earnings call ]
At brightonSEO San Diego I (Venkata Pagadala) talked about collecting data from sources most search teams never open, and earnings calls were one of them. A call is dated, on the record, and every statement has a name attached: here, Costco's CEO Ron Vachris and CFO Gary Millerchip costco . That makes it primary evidence of how AI is changing shopping, from the company that sees the numbers.
Costco's Q4 FY2026 earnings call: what the CFO said about AI search
The call in 30 seconds
What did Costco Wholesale say about AI search?
Traffic to costco.com from AI search grew triple digits for the second quarter in a row, and it converts better than any other source of traffic.[2]
Sales that start in AI tools also grew triple digits, from a low base. The CFO named Gemini, Anthropic and OpenAI.[2]
Costco does no paid digital advertising, so the CFO sees AI as a neutral place where its value can show up on its own merits.[2]
The work behind it is data: Costco's teams are cleaning up product data and product pages for the AI models.[2]
Digitally enabled comparable sales rose 19.5% in the quarter, on net sales of $93.9 billion, up 11.2%.[1]
[ All Links are shared in comment, & Thanks Amit Patel for DM related to this article ]
The slides: Industrial context graphs on Speaker Deck, opening at slide 22. [ Slide deck link will be below ]
The write-up: User First, Algorithm Second: Researching Demand Beyond Search Volume on Previsible. The talk on this site: Research and Talks. [ Link will be mentioned below ]
