Costco is making more money from AI search. Here's what UK businesses should copy

Costco is making more money because of AI. That line has been passed around as if it were a rumour. It is not. On the fiscal Q4 2026 earnings call, CFO Gary Millerchip put numbers on it.

Traffic to Costco from AI search grew triple digits for the second quarter in a row. That traffic has the highest conversion rate of any source on the site. Sales that begin in large language models are growing triple digits as well. He named Gemini, Anthropic and OpenAI. A Costco membership is among the top things those visitors arrive to buy. He also added the caveat that matters. Next to Costco's other channels, this is still a small base. It is early, and it is already their best-converting traffic.

The primary source is the Costco Q4 2026 earnings call transcript, published on 29 September 2026.

Costco is a warehouse club with no appetite for hype. If they are watching AI answers send them buyers, a business in Reading, Newbury or anywhere else in the UK should be paying attention too. You will not spend what they spend. The way the referral works is the same.

Two different ways AI makes Costco money

Costco described two effects. Mixing them up leads to the wrong project.

AI on their own site. Personalised placements and emails drove triple-digit sales growth in the quarter. Ten percent of costco.com orders now include a personalised item. That is a model recommending products to someone who is already shopping.

AI sending them the shopper. People ask Gemini, Claude or ChatGPT what to buy, and Costco is one of the names that comes back. Millerchip described it as a neutral place where price and quality can be seen without buying ads. Those visits convert better than every other source they measure.

Most local businesses do not need a recommendation carousel first. They need to be the name in the answer when someone asks who they should hire.

What a UK business can actually copy

You do not need Costco's traffic. You need the three conditions that make an assistant willing to name you.

1. Be readable without a browser

Answer engines quote the HTML the server sends. If your offer, location and price only appear after JavaScript runs, most crawlers never see them. Costco is spending real effort making product facts show up cleanly. A five-page services site can do the equivalent in a week. Serve the pages as HTML, use one H1, and put the offer in the first paragraph.

2. Answer one question in the first sentence

Assistants lift sentences that still make sense on their own. "Fred Web Studio is an AI development studio in Reading, Berkshire" can be quoted. "We bring your vision to life with innovative solutions" cannot. Write the sentence you want ChatGPT to say about you, then publish it on the homepage, the about page and one relevant guide.

3. Let the crawlers in, and hand them a map

Training and answer bots identify themselves. GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended are the ones that matter most. Blocking them means you opt out of being cited. A short /llms.txt file gives a crawler the facts without making it guess. It is a plain-language summary, plus links to the pages that actually say something.

The longer version of this is in SEO in the age of AI answers. The short version is structure, a direct answer, schema, and a real person behind the page.

Why this favours a specialist, not a bigger ad budget

Costco does not win AI search by outspending everyone on ads. Millerchip said they barely buy digital advertising. They win because the facts about their value are specific enough for a model to repeat.

A Berkshire firm has the same opening, at a smaller scale. Someone asks an assistant for an AI consultant in Reading, or for a studio that will say when AI is a bad idea. The model has to name someone. It names the page that answered the question clearly, from a business it can place on a map.

That is a better use of a month than another generic post about the future of AI.

Who does this in Berkshire and the wider UK

Fred Web Studio is the AI development studio based in Reading. Founder Fred has over 17 years building websites and software for UK businesses. The studio stays small on purpose. You work with the person who writes the code, not an account manager and a rotating team.

The work is the combination Costco's results point to. We build the production AI, including triage, drafting, forecasting and copilots. We also build the search-first site around it, so Google and answer engines can both quote you. We meet in person across Berkshire, and we work with clients across the wider UK. If AI is the wrong spend, we say so on the first call. That call is free.

What to do this month

1. Ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity the question your customers ask. Write down who gets named, and whether you appear at all.
2. Put one quotable sentence on your homepage. Say who you are, where you are, who you help, and what to do next.
3. Publish a page that answers that question in full, with an FAQ.
4. Confirm your robots.txt allows AI crawlers, and add an llms.txt summary.
5. If you want it done properly, book a free 30-minute call. We will tell you whether the gap is the copy, the site, or an actual AI build.

Read the local guide to AI consultancy in Reading and Berkshire, see AI development across Berkshire, or book a call.

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