For Gen X and older consumers, Black Friday is remembered for the hours-long lines and even campouts in front of their favorite stores, many of which are now closed on the day as Black Friday has evolved into the second-biggest online shopping day in the U.S. — and increasingly around the world. Last year, as part of Adobe’s holiday shopping data, we found that shoppers spent over $41 billion during the five-day holiday weekend, including $10.8 billion on Black Friday alone.
Since 2013, Adobe has been at the forefront of forecasting and tracking holiday sales, powered by billions of anonymized and aggregated transactions that flow through Adobe Analytics. Through the Adobe Digital Insights AI Traffic Report and our recent update on retail traffic from large language models (LLMs), we are maintaining a consistent pulse on, and keeping both retailers and consumers on top of, these changes. With that, here are five ways AI will shape shopping this Black Friday.
People will shop with AI a lot more.
AI is changing how we shop. Rather than perusing brand or retailer sites or even browsing the aisles in a brick-and-mortar store — many consumers are instead prompting ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or a myriad of other AI search tools to research products, uncover the latest trends, find discounts, and explore gift ideas.
Adobe recently surveyed 5,000 U.S. consumers and found that while 38% have used generative AI for online shopping, 52% plan to do so this year — for product research and recommendations, shopping lists generation, virtual try-ons, and more.
Last holiday season, LLMs accounted for less than 1% of shopping traffic to U.S. retailers, but over the last year (as of July 2025), this traffic has increased by a staggering 4,700%. At this rate, LLM-driven shopping will still remain a small percentage of overall shopping, but these shoppers represent the future of e-commerce.
People will use AI to tell retailers what they want.
In the weeks and months leading up to Black Friday, consumers are using generative AI tools like Adobe Firefly to indicate their top-of-mind products. We found that:
- Prompts mentioning phones peaked at 40% above the average 2024 levels during the week before Thanksgiving.
- Prompts mentioning TVs peaked at 25% above the average 2024 levels two weeks before Thanksgiving.
- Prompts mentioning toys started to increase in the month leading up to Thanksgiving. In the three weeks before Thanksgiving, they were 30% above the average 2024 levels and reached 50% above average levels during Christmas week.
Undoubtedly, as AI integrates more seamlessly into our workflows, applications, and daily lives, this technology is transforming consumer behavior — from how people shop and research products to how they purchase. Furthermore, creative generative AI is establishing a new conversation between brands/retailers and consumers that sheds a light on what people want to buy or gift.
People who use AI to shop will be increasingly valuable.
As recently as last October, shoppers who used AI to navigate to specific brands or retailers converted only one-fifth (20%) as often as other visitors. By July 2025, that gap had shrunk dramatically as AI-driven shoppers converted only 23% less often than other visitors — a significant improvement from 49% less at the start of the year.
Additionally, relative revenue per visit is growing rapidly and the gap is narrowing. Last year, an AI-driven visit was worth nearly 100% less than a traditional visit — a gap that has narrowed to just 27% less over the last 12 months and is expected to keep closing as consumers use generative AI tools more natively on mobile devices. This is compounded by the fact that AI-driven shoppers are also highly engaged — spending 32% more time on retailers’ sites — giving brands more time to build relationships, foster trust, and influence purchasing behavior.
People have started to plan Christmas shopping early.
Last year, generative AI prompts that mentioned Christmas rose rapidly, beginning in early September. If last year’s trends continue, shopping-related prompts will begin to peak about three weeks before Thanksgiving. This shows consumers are not only telling brands what they want this holiday season, but also when they start to think about it. This year, more than ever, brands will listen closely as consumers’ interest in Turkey and Tinsel increases.
People will start to converge AI and mobile habits.
In early 2025, LLM-driven shopping was largely a desktop phenomenon, with only 18% of that traffic coming from mobile. Just six months later, mobile’s share had risen to 26% of the total traffic. As we approach Black Friday, and with increasing adoption of AI applications, we anticipate more than one-third of LLM-driven traffic will come from mobile devices.
Since half of all dollars spent during the holiday season come from mobile devices, this opens the door to double the shopping ecosystem touched by LLMs. It also broadens the customer base influenced by AI. For shoppers whose phones are their primary or only access to the internet, this shift democratizes AI advice and shopping.
Adobe Digital Insights (ADI) has been a leader in tracking the global digital economy since 2013, offering the most comprehensive analysis of its kind based on trillions of visits and billions of transactions across the web. With this breadth and depth of data, ADI is uniquely positioned to understand the economy, customer journeys, and the use of generative AI. It is focused on providing creators, consumers, marketers, and everyone else with context for their digital creative and commercial lives. Just as ADI derives insights from Adobe Analytics and Experience Cloud data, the team is beginning to understand the generative-creative world through survey sources and analyses of prompts used to generate more than 22 billion AI assets in Adobe Firefly.
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