Artificial intelligence is helping holiday shoppers empty their wallets at an unprecedented rate. U.S. consumers spent a record $11.8 billion online this Black Friday and are expected to spend another $14.2 billion on Cyber Monday, according to Adobe Analytics. Driving this shopping frenzy is an increasing reliance on artificial intelligence systems to recommend gifts, track prices and place orders.
Shoppers in particular are turning to chatbots to research products and find deals. Adobe said that on Black Friday, AI-driven retail website traffic (measured by shoppers clicking on links provided by AI tools) surged 805% year-over-year. This traffic is especially strong in categories such as video games, appliances, electronics, toys, personal care and baby products. Shoppers who find a retail website through an AI service are also 38% more likely to make a purchase compared to visitors from non-AI traffic sources.
“There are a million different variations or brands of every product,” Luca Cian, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business who focuses on consumer behavior, told the Observer. “AI simplifies many of our choices.”
The rise of AI-assisted shopping coincides with a broader surge in holiday e-commerce, even amid economic stress. In the first 23 days of November, U.S. consumers spent $79.7 billion online, a 7.5% increase over last year. Adobe predicts that online spending will reach $253.4 billion during the 2025 holiday season.
Adobe first noticed an AI-driven holiday shopping surge last year, when generative AI boosted e-commerce visits by 1,300% between November and December. Shoppers reached through AI tools not only have higher conversion rates, but also spend more time browsing, explore more content and have lower bounce rates.
Cian said continued growth in AI-powered shopping can be attributed to improvements in previously “clunky” features, adding that tight budgets may prompt shoppers to rely on AI to find deals. The technology has grown as younger consumers have entered the market—about 61% of Gen Z and 57% of Millennials already use AI tools for shopping, according to a recent Mastercard survey.
Shopping assistants are constantly evolving
Adobe isn’t the only company focused on the growing influence of artificial intelligence in retail. Salesforce, which also monitors holiday shopping, said artificial intelligence tools such as autonomous agents impacted $22 billion in global online sales between Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
And these tools are rapidly becoming more powerful. OpenAI recently launched instant checkout, allowing users to purchase products from Etsy or Shopify merchants such as Glossier and Spanx without leaving ChatGPT. Amazon’s upgraded assistant can automatically make purchases when the price falls below a set budget. Last month, Google launched a feature that lets you call local stores to check if a specific product is in stock.
Brands are also jumping on board. Walmart’s Sparky AI assistant provides personalized recommendations, compares options and synthesizes reviews. Rival Target has launched a similar tool to help holiday shoppers find specialized gifts with guided prompts.
As AI makes shopping more efficient, questions remain about how model developers will ultimately monetize these tools and whether shoppers will become overly reliant on them, Cian said. He noted that AI could also make visiting a store or browsing online less enjoyable.
“Shopping can also be an enjoyable and enriching experience,” he said. “If we shift everything to using artificial intelligence, we might lose that excitement.”
