You may have artificial intelligence to thank for your Christmas gift this year.
From tech to retail, companies are going all in on AI this year, and it looks like consumers are following suit. This holiday season, shoppers are embracing AI to help find and purchase gifts.
New data from Salesforce, which creates AI agents through its Agentforce platform, found that AI agents drove 17% of the online orders at its retail partners during Cyber Week, the week leading up to and including Cyber Monday in the US. The AI agents helped drive $13.5 billion in sales during the week.
AI is helping steer customers toward deals and the checkout more broadly. The use of AI — including on platforms like ChatGPT — during Cyber Weekend tripled from 2024, Salesforce said.
These stats signal that retailers’ AI investments, ranging from partnering with AI companies to developing their own chatbots, are paying off for Christmas.
“AI helps consumers bypass traditional homepages and go straight to the product pages they’re looking for, which increases efficiency for shoppers,” Lori Niquette, director of data storytelling at digital analytics company Quantum Metric, said.
For retailers, it represents a significant shift from the strategies they’ve come to rely on, such as their homepage and social media.
Consumers spent a record $11.8 billion online on Black Friday, up 9.1% year over year, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracks customer data from websites and apps. Shoppers used chat services to hunt for deals and compare products on the shopping holiday, for example. The analytics firm found that AI is making the shopping experience more personalized and increasing brand discovery with its product recommendations.
On Black Friday, shoppers who visited US retail sites through an AI chat service were 38% more likely to make a purchase than non-AI traffic sources, Adobe found.
To prepare for the holiday rush, several major retailers have launched generative AI chatbots or struck new AI partnerships. Target rolled out a festive AI shopping assistant that offers gift suggestions from user input.
Quantum Metric found that shoppers are primarily using AI to find the best deals.
“AI tools aren’t changing what consumers buy. Instead, they’re transforming how they make those purchasing decisions,” Niquette told Business Insider.
Read the original article on Business Insider
The post How AI is quietly becoming the holiday shopper’s secret weapon appeared first on Business Insider.
