TL;DR
- This holiday season, many customers will choose gifts in a conversation with AI, not by scrolling ads or opening ten tabs.
- The numbers are already here: AI traffic to US websites grew 693% in the 2025 holiday season, and those visitors converted 31% more often. Adobe expects another 130% this year.
- If an AI assistant doesn’t recommend you, that customer may never see you, even if you run ads.
- The good news: in markets where few competitors have started, a few weeks of preparation can still make a difference.
- Below: what changed in the buying journey, what AI agents can already do, seven steps for the next four weeks and three mistakes to avoid.
Imagine it’s November. Someone opens ChatGPT and types: “I’m looking for a gift for my dad. He loves cooking and has almost everything. My budget is up to €80 and it has to arrive before Christmas.”
Seconds later, they get a handful of suggestions with stores, prices, arguments and links. The question every business should ask is simple: are we on that list? If not, this customer won’t know we exist.
The short answer
What the numbers say
| Source | Finding |
|---|---|
| Adobe, 2025 holiday season | Traffic from AI assistants to US websites grew 693% year over year; AI visitors converted 31% more often than others |
| Salesforce, Cyber Week 2025 | AI and agents influenced 20% of global online orders, including recommendations and chat assistants in stores |
| Adobe, 2026 forecast | AI traffic to US retail sites is expected to grow another 130% this season |
| Salesforce, State of Commerce 2026 | Purchase journeys starting in an AI chat grew 200% in a year, roughly tripling |
This doesn’t mean ads stop working. It means a growing share of decisions happens before the customer ever sees an ad.
How the buying journey changed
- Until nowAn ad or video on social media, a visit to the store, a few weeks of remarketing, an abandoned-cart email, finally an order. That long window is why Black Friday sits so far before Christmas.
- NowThe idea, the research, the comparison and sometimes the order happen in one conversation. The assistant knows the customer's context and acts like a salesperson: take this instead of that.
Nobody hired this AI salesperson, and we may not even like the idea. But it can only recommend what it can find and understand. Stores whose websites present their best offer clearly win; stores with outdated or poorly structured information leave the AI with nothing to argue for them.
I shop this way myself. I’ve found gift ideas for people close to me in a few conversations, compared models, and asked for the best price together with delivery, installation and service conditions.
What AI agents can already do
Recommend and compare
Suggest products, compare prices, delivery and return conditionsAvailable today in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI Mode
Everyday
Fill a cart for you
Open a store, find specific products, add them to the cart and report the total with deliveryI recently had an AI assistant do this in an online grocery store in about 30 actions, while I worked on something else
Already possible
Check out inside the chat
Buy without leaving the assistantOpenAI launched Instant Checkout in ChatGPT in the US in September 2025
Growing
Pay with limits
Card networks and payment companies are testing agent payments with spending limits and single-use cardsYou decide whether to allow it. You can also ask the agent to prepare the order and pay yourself.
Your choice
I wouldn’t advise anyone to hand over their card details carelessly. But the direction is clear: more and more often, AI chooses what to buy and from whom, and we only approve.
What about smaller markets
Most of the data above is from the US, and smaller markets usually follow with a delay. Take Bulgaria, where I work with many brands:
| Indicator | Value |
|---|---|
| Bulgarians aged 16 to 74 using generative AI, 2025 | 22.5%, third lowest in the EU |
| EU average | 32.7% |
| Bulgarians aged 16 to 24 | 50%, one in two |
| Google AI Mode | Available in Bulgaria and in Bulgarian |
One in two young people already uses AI, and they will buy gifts for themselves and for their parents this Christmas. Meanwhile, the rest of the funnel is getting harder:
- When an AI summary appears on Google, people click a regular link in 8% of visits instead of 15%, and only 1% click a link inside the summary.
- The average cost per click in Google Ads rose from $4.66 to over $5 in a year, and grew in 87% of industries.
Fewer organic clicks, more expensive ads, and more decisions made in AI conversations. I see this as a chance, not a threat. New channels are a gold mine at the start, before everyone arrives. Those who ignored TikTok in 2020 now pay a lot for the attention they could once get for free.
Seven steps for the next four weeks
Many big retailers run Black Friday in mid-November, which leaves about four weeks. Here is what I would do.
Write 15 to 20 real questions: not "teapot", but "a gift for my mum who loves tea, up to €50, delivered by 20 December". Ask ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode and Perplexity and note in a table who appears and what is said about you.
Check robots.txt and your CDN or firewall settings so they don't block AI assistants. I've found this mistake on sites built by large, experienced teams.
If price and stock load with JavaScript, some bots see a product without a price. Show price in euros, stock, delivery time, returns, sizes and materials as text, with Product and Offer structured data.
It's free, and Google uses its product data for shopping features. Add a clear order-by date for Christmas delivery: everyone running late will ask.
Three to five pages for situations, not products: gift guides by budget and profile, comparisons, "what to know before you choose". Generic claims like "top quality" don't get cited.
AI looks for confirmation outside your site: reviews, articles, forums, video reviews. Wikipedia, YouTube and Reddit are among the most cited sources in Google's AI summaries. Ask happy customers for reviews.
GA4 now has an AI Assistant channel, and Search Console has a generative AI report. Compare how much AI visitors buy, and repeat your prompt tests.
AI compares prices faster than any person. Inflated "old" prices hurt more than ever, and in the EU a discount must show the lowest price of the previous 30 days.
Three mistakes to avoid
| Mistake | Why it hurts |
|---|---|
| Stopping your ads | Advertising still works. Add AI visibility to it, don’t replace it. |
| Believing in a “guaranteed place in ChatGPT” | Nobody can guarantee it. Look for experts who explain how the optimization works. |
| Expecting results in days | Assistants search in real time, so some changes show this season. But trust in a brand builds over months and years. |
Your checklist
Six things to do this month
My prediction
This Christmas, many people will ask an AI for the first time what to buy. Most won’t notice that anything changed; they will simply remember it was easier.
Businesses will notice the results. Some will see more orders without knowing where they came from. Others will wonder why sales dropped, raise their ad budgets and ask why something that always worked stopped working. The difference will be whether they made the short list when the customer asked.
Starting now gives you a head start, and the perfect preparation for next season and the ones after it.
For a neutral overview with data and sources, read AI Shopping Assistants and the Holiday Season, Explained on Egorithms.
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