Black Friday 2025: the first AI-native shopping season

AI is becoming a practical starting point for deal discovery

When shoppers use AI as part of their Black Friday workflow, they engage quickly and confidently. Many participants gravitated to ChatGPT because they already rely on it for other tasks. Others selected Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot or Google AI Studio due to familiarity with those ecosystems.

Once in the experience, participants used AI to compare prices, refine product choices, and retrieve information from multiple retailers without opening several tabs. Many described the experience as cleaner and more efficient than traditional browsing. This behavior highlights how readily consumers adopt AI when it is available within the shopping process.

AI delivers speed, consolidation, and clarity

Participants consistently said AI made their early-stage decision-making easier. They highlighted three advantages:

1. Faster comparisons across retailers
2. Clear summaries of product differences
3. The ability to ask follow-up questions that sharpened the results

Several participants also noted that AI reduced clutter and created a more focused experience. The conversational format helped them narrow choices without feeling overwhelmed. This is where AI currently holds a strong advantage. It simplifies the research phase and reduces the cognitive load of deal-hunting.

Accuracy issues create hesitation

Although the AI experience felt streamlined, participants encountered moments that disrupted their confidence. Examples included incorrect or outdated prices, missing or non-functional links, product details that did not match retailer listings, and incomplete option sets.

These inconsistencies caused several participants to pause and recheck information elsewhere. Accuracy remains a decisive factor in shopper trust, and this is where AI’s limitations become most visible during high-stakes shopping events.

Retailers still provide the authoritative source of truth

Once participants narrowed their choices, they typically shifted to retailer or brand websites to confirm what they had seen. They wanted to verify prices, shipping timelines, availability, colors and sizes, and membership deals. They also preferred established tools like Honey for promotions.

This pattern reinforces the current dynamic. AI supports efficiency. Retailers support accuracy and trust. Shoppers still rely on retailer-owned environments when they are closer to making a final decision because those environments provide the most reliable and complete information.

Efficiency vs. accuracy: a new competitive divide

The findings reveal a clear split in the shopper journey.

AI leads on:

• Speed
• Consolidation
• Ease of comparisons
• Reduced clutter
• Conversational refinement

Retailers lead on:

• Price and inventory accuracy
• Verified product links
• Detailed images and reviews
• Availability and sizing
• Shipping and return information
• Loyalty programs and coupon validation

Both sides play important roles. AI helps shoppers make sense of the market quickly. Retailers close the loop by giving them the confidence to purchase. The opportunity for retailers is to close the gap between these two experiences and offer both efficiency and accuracy within their own ecosystems.

Shoppers want retailers to integrate AI capabilities

Participants described a clear set of expectations for how retailers should evolve their digital experiences. They want AI-driven features that mirror the ease of tools like ChatGPT but with retailer-level precision.

Requested capabilities included:

• Integrated price comparisons across major retailers.
• Better deal organization and filtering.
• Highly accurate and up-to-date price data.
• Verified product sources and functional links.
• Visibility into availability and shipping costs.
• An AI assistant that helps narrow choices more quickly.

Shoppers are already forming expectations based on the AI tools they use. Retailers that integrate these capabilities will reduce friction and earn more trust earlier in the journey.

One retailer embedding AI shopping in their customer journey is Target, which recently announced its curated, conversational shopping experience inside ChatGPT. “At Target, everything starts with the guest, and that means meeting them wherever they are, including emerging spaces like ChatGPT, where millions of consumers visit," said Prat Vemana, executive vice president and chief information and product officer at Target in a November press release. 

The future belongs to retailers who bridge efficiency and trust

Black Friday 2025 highlights a turning point. AI shapes how consumers gather information. Retailers shape how they validate it. The most successful retail experiences in the coming years will combine the strengths of both. To compete effectively, retailers should focus on the following priorities:

1. Strengthen product data quality and structure so AI systems interpret it accurately.
2. Integrate conversational and agentic elements into their own shopping flows.
3. Improve transparency and real-time accuracy to maintain shopper trust.
4. Continuously test AI-enabled journeys with real users to understand where confidence breaks or improves.

Consumers are moving fluidly between AI-driven discovery and retailer-driven verification. Retailers that close this gap will guide shoppers more effectively and build stronger loyalty throughout the holiday season and beyond.

If your team is exploring how to design shopping journeys that balance efficiency and trust, UserTesting can help you observe real shoppers using AI and evaluate how to evolve your digital experiences.