The Interactive Advertising Bureau released the AI-Era Attribution Blueprint on November 12, 2026, according to PPC Land and PYMNTS. The 25-page framework classifies each conversion as Human-Owned, AI-Assisted or AI-Executed depending on whether a person or an AI system created the intent, made the decision and completed the purchase. It assigns no fixed percentages of credit. Instead it defines who may make a decision claim or a contributory claim and what evidence each requires. Caroline Giegerich, the IAB's vice president for AI, who led the working group, said AI-influenced sales "are sometimes reported as search or direct traffic, which can send the next marketing investment to the wrong channel."
The blueprint cites a June 2026 Similarweb study that found only 8.8% of AI-influenced visits came from the AI itself, with 55.9% arriving through search and 19.9% as direct traffic, PPC Land reported. It also cites Adobe Analytics data showing AI traffic to US retail sites grew 393% year over year in the first quarter of 2026. The IAB announcement says 44% of ad buyers use branded search and direct traffic as proxies for AI influence; PPC Land notes its own earlier coverage of the same survey tied the 44% figure to a different question.
The framework asks AI platforms to disclose whether a product surfaced through paid or organic placement, what sources informed a recommendation, what the AI surfaced, recommended or executed, and to label AI-originated traffic consistently. PPC Land reports the 16 named contributors include people from WPP Media, Microsoft, Walmart and Criteo, but none from OpenAI, Google, Amazon, Meta, Perplexity or Anthropic, and that the IAB's materials do not say whether any platform has agreed to the disclosures. IAB CEO David Cohen said the blueprint "is honest about what the industry can't yet substantiate."