TLDR: Adobe anticipates a significant increase in holiday online sales, largely driven by the transformative impact of Artificial Intelligence on consumer shopping experiences. Data from the 2024 holiday season showed record e-commerce sales of over $240 billion, with generative AI-powered chatbots boosting retail site traffic by 1,300%. This trend continued into 2025, with generative AI traffic surging 4,700% year-over-year by July, indicating a growing consumer reliance on AI for product research, deal-finding, and brand recommendations.
Adobe is forecasting a substantial surge in holiday online sales, attributing this growth primarily to the evolving and transformative influence of Artificial Intelligence on consumer shopping behaviors. This prediction builds upon robust data from the 2024 holiday season and sustained trends observed throughout 2025.
During the 2024 holiday shopping period (November 1 to December 31), U.S. e-commerce sales reached a record-breaking $241.4 billion, marking an 8.7% increase over the previous year. This figure surpassed Adobe’s initial forecast of $240.8 billion. A key driver of this growth was the unprecedented adoption of AI-powered shopping assistants. Generative AI-powered chatbots, which provided links to retail sites for gift buyers, dramatically increased traffic to these sites by 1,300% compared to the 2023 holiday season. Cyber Monday, in particular, saw an astounding 1,950% year-over-year growth in chatbot-driven clicks.
This trend of AI-fueled shopping has shown continued momentum into 2025. New data from Adobe reveals that generative AI traffic to U.S. retail sites has grown substantially, rising 4,700% year-over-year by July 2025. Following the holiday season, generative AI traffic was up 1,100% in January 2025 and 3,100% in April 2025, compared to July 2024, when such traffic was minimal.
Consumer surveys conducted by Adobe further underscore this shift. A survey of 5,000 U.S. consumers indicated that 38% have already utilized generative AI for online shopping, with a significant 52% planning to do so within the current year. Shoppers are leveraging AI for various tasks, including conducting product research (53%), finding the best deals (20%), locating specific items online (19%), and obtaining brand recommendations (15%).
Mobile shopping also reached new heights, with 54.5% of all e-commerce transactions occurring on smartphones during the 2024 holiday season, up from 51.1% in 2023. Christmas Day saw the highest percentage of mobile purchases at 65%. Vivek Pandya, lead analyst of Adobe Digital Insights, noted that the 2024 holiday season demonstrated how e-commerce is being reshaped by consumers who ‘prefer to transact on smaller screens and lean on generative AI-powered services to shop more efficiently.‘ He added that these shifts present ‘opportunities for retailers to deliver new services and experiences that capture the attention of consumers, many of whom are shopping online in different ways.‘
The increasing comfort with AI-powered shopping is also reflected in revenue per visit. AI-driven revenue-per-visit increased by 84% from January to July 2025, narrowing the conversion gap between AI-driven and non-AI visits. In July 2025, an AI-driven visit was worth only 27% less than a non-AI visit, a significant improvement from 97% less in July 2024. This gap is expected to narrow further as more consumers use generative AI on mobile devices, where impulse shopping is more prevalent.
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Top product categories for online holiday spending in 2024 included electronics, apparel, and home goods, accounting for over half of sales. Cosmetics saw the largest year-over-year spending increase, jumping more than 12% to nearly $8 billion. Discounts played a crucial role, driving a 20% increase in units sold for expensive goods.
