AI is reshaping how consumers in Canada search, shop, and spend time with media. As digital adoption deepens, brands, publishers, and retailers face the need to adapt to AI-driven discovery and commerce, or risk losing out in a rapidly changing market.

Canada’s digital economy is entering a faster, more competitive phase in 2026 as ad spending accelerates, short video surges, ecommerce climbs, and AI-driven search reshapes how audiences discover content.

Canada’s ecommerce market is catching up with global peers. A key factor: the growing digital presence of the “big three” grocery players—whose ecommerce sales we’re forecasting for the first time.

Our annual report on ecommerce in Canada highlights our most recent forecasts for all flavors of retail, including brick-and-mortar, digital buying, and mobile commerce.

Canada’s click-and-collect buyer growth tops our rankings among the countries we forecast. It’s a key option for consumers in Canada who prefer speedier order fulfillment and want to avoid home-delivery costs.

Canada’s consumers are slowly but surely shifting to online shopping, with ecommerce more than doubling its share of total retail sales since 2019. In this report, we look at the various retail milestones Canada will reach in 2022, as well as our first-ever breakdown of the country’s ecommerce sales by product category.

Food and grocery delivery has spiked during the pandemic. Apps like SkipTheDishes, Uber Eats, and Instacart have gained new users who turned to delivery out of necessity. For marketers, these apps present a new opportunity to reach consumers with ad products rich in intent and location data.

Amazon is already one of the top digital retailers in Canada. But that may not be the case with digital grocery, a highly competitive space where established players are vying to fill up virtual shopping carts. eMarketer spoke with Michael LeBlanc, founder and principal of M.E. LeBlanc & Company, about Amazon's role in the country's overall ecommerce landscape and its digital grocery sector.