Tag: last-minute gifts

When Pablo Fourez set out to find the perfect gift for his wife, he took inspiration from her newfound interest in the Chinese tile game Mahjong. But when scavenging to find the perfect set for Christmas, Fourez, who is the Chief Digital Officer at Mastercard, didn’t turn to friends or the internet for help—he turned to ChatGPT.

“I had to research it, because I don’t know anything about the game,” Fourez says. “It’s really a very big help for consumers.”

Fourez is not alone. A recent Salesforce analysis found that  AI and AI agents drove $67 billion in Cyber Week sales this year. And Inc.’s Jason Aten recently referenced Black Friday sales data published by Adobe, which shows “AI-generated traffic to retail sites jumped 805 percent year-over-year.”

“Not only are people using AI tools to find deals and compare products,” he writes, “but also shoppers who landed on a site from an AI assistant were 38 percent more likely to convert than everyone else.” 

AI companies and retailers alike are also taking note of the potential, with Walmart, Etsy, Stripe,  and Shopify launching partnerships for checkout within ChatGPT. In November, OpenAI rolled out a new shopping research feature within ChatGPT, which, among other things, comes up with gift ideas and researches them for users. Similarly, Google’s Gemini has also introduced new features to streamline the shopping process, like checking prices and availability nearby, and developing gift ideas conversationally.

“It’s hard to predict what the future will actually be, other than to know that it’s going to be very different,” AI commerce expert Mark Simon says. He has previously advised companies like Walmart, Therabody, and Skims on preparing for AI commerce. He added, “What we do know is that buyers and consumers are increasingly going to look at LLMs like chat GPT as the source for answers.”

The shift has marketers and businesses scrambling. “2025 was the year of AI visibility and getting everybody on board. 2026 will be the year of AI action,” says AJ Ghergich, Global VP of AI at leading agentic AI search technology Botify. “Next year is going to be about how to make a dent in this and grow. That’s the main common question that I get from CMOs. Like, ‘Do we have the right strategy?’”