Black Friday 2025: how AI is redefining the way we buy
Black Friday 2025 has broken new records again: 11.8 billion dollars in online purchases, up 9.1% compared with last year. But behind this impressive number lies a much deeper transformation: AI has changed the way we shop.
According to analyses published this week, traffic coming from AI tools (AI-powered chatbots or AI assistants) has increased by 805% in a single year.
And even more striking: users who arrive via an AI assistant are 38% more likely to place an order than others. In other words, LLMs are becoming a conversion channel in their own right.
How AI assistants are transforming the shopping journey?
In 2025, most consumers no longer type “best Black Friday deal 65 inch TV” into Google.
They ask their AI assistant directly. The artificial intelligence compares, filters, recommends… then points them to a handful of merchants. It removes friction, speeds up decision-making, and introduces a new player in the shopping journey: the conversational agent.
Coupled with mobile (which accounts for up to 55% of online sales this year), the journey becomes ultra-fluid.
Another striking trend: premium purchases are booming: +64% in electronics, +55% in sports e-commerce, +48% in household appliances. AI reassures, supports, and justifies the higher price point. Baskets get bigger.
What this changes for retailers
Our takeaway is simple: AI is no longer a gimmick. It’s a strategic building block of modern commerce.
Retailers now need to optimise their stack to become “AI-friendly”.
Concretely, this means:
- Impeccable product data: structured, rich, and easily usable by LLMs.
- Clean, fast APIs: AI agents won’t wait 4 seconds for a response.
- Real-time pipelines to personalise recommendations, prices, and promotions.
- Dedicated tracking of “AI-referenced buyers” to analyse this new channel.
- A visibility strategy geared towards AI agents (including for GEO-related queries).
Because from now on, it’s no longer the user who chooses the e-commerce site – it’s their assistant.
What’s next?
Black Friday 2025 sends a clear signal: retailers who are ready for AI will convert twice as fast as the others. The rest… will become invisible.
At DATASOLUTION, as an AI agency, we’re already supporting our clients through these transitions: data quality and governance, APIs, LLM integration, generative AI applied to commerce, journey optimisation, GEO, and more.
The question is no longer whether AI will transform e-commerce, but how fast you’re ready to follow.
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