AI-assisted shopping is the talk of the holiday shopping season

For the 2025 holiday shopping season, major retailers and technology companies are unveiling new and enhanced AI-powered shopping tools designed to improve the consumer experience and drive online sales growth. These AI solutions aim to make gift-buying easier by offering personalized recommendations and streamlining the process from discovery to purchase. Leading firms such as Amazon, OpenAI, and Google are competing to develop integrated AI systems that enable consumers to complete shopping without needing to navigate multiple websites, potentially transforming the online retail landscape.

Despite the hype around AI-assisted shopping, industry analysts expect its influence to be moderate this year. Not all shopping platforms have adopted these advanced AI tools yet, and a significant portion of consumers remain hesitant to fully engage with AI-driven shopping experiences. According to senior retail analyst Brad Jashinsky from Gartner, while AI adoption is accelerating, the technology’s impact will be somewhat limited in 2025’s holiday season.

The wider holiday shopping trends underscore the growing importance of mobile commerce, which is expected to account for a record 56.1% share of online spending, and the expanding use of “buy now, pay later” services, which are projected to increase significantly year-over-year. AI tools are also part of a broader shift toward more personalized, convenient, and tech-enabled shopping journeys sought by consumers during this critical period. This move into AI-assisted retail reflects ongoing innovation in e-commerce, aligned with broader industry forecasts that predict strong online spending growth throughout the season.