AI is the New Personal Shopper This Holiday Season

Holiday shopping is a season of tradition. Families gather, retailers roll out promotions, and consumers search for the perfect gifts. Yet in 2025, traditions are colliding with a dramatic shift in how products are discovered, recommended and purchased. A growing share of shoppers, especially Gen Z and millennials, are kicking off holiday shopping on artificial intelligence platforms instead of search engines, social channels or direct retailer sites, marking a fundamental change in where and how commerce happens.

According to Future Commerce’s New Modes 2025 report commissioned by Commerce, one in three Gen Z consumers and one in four millennials say they now prefer AI platforms as their first stop for product research. The shift isn’t just a trend, it’s a transformation of shopping behavior and a new horizon of consumer experiences. It marks the arrival of agentic commerce: a new era where AI-powered platforms don’t just assist the journey, they orchestrate it.

What does agentic commerce actually mean for consumers? Think of it this way: for years, shoppers wandered the digital aisles of the internet on their own, searching, scrolling and comparing. Now with AI-powered platforms, they have a personal holiday helper in their pocket, doing the shopping with them, curating options, wrapping recommendations, and handing them exactly what they asked for (and sometimes what they didn’t know they wanted).

Prompt Shopping is the New Window Shopping

For decades, e-commerce was powered by search engine optimization and paid media that directed shoppers to brands' sites. Today, AI completely changed that pattern. It’s like hiring a personal holiday helper who doesn’t wait for your wish list; they already know what’s on it, where to get it and how to wrap it up just right. Tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s Search Generative Experience are increasingly becoming the first place consumers turn for gift ideas, product comparisons and reviews.

Younger shoppers use these tools as trusted companions for almost everything. They don’t just search, they ask. Nearly half of Gen Z and millennial consumers use AI platforms daily and more than a quarter say they trust AI recommendations over those of friends, family or influencers. This shift has real consequences: if your brand isn't discoverable within AI ecosystems you risk being invisible to an entire generation of holiday shoppers.

The e-commerce funnel hasn’t disappeared, it’s just collapsed. People move from idea to decision to purchase all in one conversational chat window. AI-native agents are like the best Instacart shopper, finding, comparing, recommending, purchasing and delivering the best gifts right from your chat window. What does this mean for brands? It means your product data has to support each of those interactions without a human providing the context in between. Every title, image and attribute influences whether your products make it into that AI-powered cart.

From SEO to AEO

For brands, the takeaway is simple: traditional SEO isn’t enough anymore. To compete in an AI-driven holiday season requires embracing answer engine optimization (AEO) or generative engine optimization (GEO). These approaches focus on ensuring that product data is structured, rich and ready to be surfaced by AI platforms. Think of AI agents like a personal shopper who is out picking products for millions of customers at once. If your product data is messy, incomplete or confusing, it’s like sending that shopper into the store with a blurry photo and half a list. They might grab something close, but it won’t be your product, or your brand story, that ends up in the cart.

It all starts with the basics: accurate titles, strong product descriptions, cohesive attributes (e.g., making sure colors and sizes are uniform), and clean feeds for platforms like Google Shopping and TikTok Shop. It also means keeping content fresh, whether that’s updating holiday gift guides, publishing seasonal blog posts, or refreshing promotional landing pages. AI systems tend to favor up-to-date information, and stale product data is more likely to be ignored, just like a personal shopper who skips over items past their expiration date and goes straight for what’s new, relevant and ready to deliver.

Furthermore, brands also need to think beyond text. AI platforms are increasingly pulling from reviews, how-to guides and even video transcripts. Making this unstructured content machine-readable can help elevate a brand in AI-driven recommendations. It’s like giving your personal shopper a full picture of the product from every angle, not just the label. The more context they have, from customer opinions to how something fits or functions, the better they can match it to what the shopper is really looking for.

At Revelyst, the parent company of Fox Racing, CamelBak and nearly 40 other brands, these shifts aren't theoretical. They’re already reshaping how its brands approach holiday commerce.

Revelyst realized that AI is now the personal shopper for millions of consumers. Its job is to make sure that shoppers have everything AI platforms need to choose a Revelyst product. That means delivering AI platforms clean, complete and trustworthy product data. Not just basic details, but the kind of rich context that helps make confident recommendations.

The Revelyst team started its AI journey with predictive analytics and personalized product recommendations, quickly seeing efficiency gains of more than 30 percent in its technology operations. But when it came to e-commerce, the team recognized online shopping itself was starting to happen in new places. In the last nine months, Fox Racing has seen traffic from AI-driven shopping channels double month-over-month — proof that AI is quickly becoming a major driver of consumer engagement.

To prepare for this new reality, Revelyst made data quality the foundation of its strategy. Working with Feedonomics, Revelyst is making sure every product is clearly represented and easy for AI to understand. Fit guides, videos and reviews are all being pulled together and structured so AI can “shop” with confidence. By giving AI richer, more complete product information, Revelyst is making sure AI platforms (aka consumers’ “personal shopper”) know exactly how to represent the brand. So when someone asks for the best motocross helmet or trail running vest, AI doesn’t just pull a random result from the web, it picks the right product, described the right way, straight from the source.

Revelyst’s strategy to lean in on data quality isn’t without challenges. The data coming back from AI tools is still limited, and it’s not always easy to check what’s accurate. However, Revelyst sees that as part of the opportunity, a key part of the early-mover advantage. By testing and learning now, before agentic commerce fully takes off, the company is building a playbook it can apply across its diverse portfolio. For this holiday season, that means better visibility for flagship brands like Fox Racing and CamelBak at the time when shoppers are turning to AI for help choosing what to buy.

Unwrapping How AI Shapes the Season

Why does this matter so much for the holidays? Holiday shopping amplifies the exact behaviors AI is built for. Shoppers ask open-ended questions like, “What are the top gifts for mountain bikers?” or “What are good kitchen gadgets under $50?”

In prior years these questions would have started on Google or YouTube. Now, AI platforms are claiming that role and providing a much richer customer experience from the start. For consumers, it means faster, more relevant answers. For brands, it’s a chance to show up earlier in the journey and stay present all the way through to purchase.

Brands that invest in AEO, making product information clear, consistent and easy for AI to read, will be the ones that win. When your data is complete, accurate and written in a way that mirrors how people actually shop, your products are far more likely to be surfaced and recommended by AI.

That means including real details that matter to shoppers. For example, instead of a short title like "Trail Helmet," a product description might read "Lightweight mountain bike helmet with adjustable ventilation, perfect for long trail rides and compatible with goggles." Those specifics help AI understand not just what the product is, but who it’s for and when it should be recommended.

When brands take that level of care, AI agents do the job better, finding the right fit, making smart comparisons and recommending with confidence. And for shoppers, that turns what used to be a frustrating search into a faster, more personal experience.

It also helps solve some of the biggest pain points in traditional e-commerce. Sixty-three percent of shoppers say they abandon carts when forced to create an account, and more than half unsubscribe when brands send too many messages. AI simplifies that. It surfaces the right options without logins, pop-ups or spam, like a personal shopper who knows what you want and gets it right the first time.

Authenticity and Brand in the AI Era

Even as AI shapes more of the journey, authenticity is still what drives brand trust. When consumers look at AI to surface product recommendations, they’re implicitly trusting the data behind it. Brands that prioritize transparency, consistency and relevance will earn consumer trust.

Revelyst’s results show that clearly. Even in an automated shopping environment, people still respond to brands that feel authentic and credible. The AI might surface the options, but it’s still the brand story that wins attention.

The Future is Data-Led, Not Ad-Led

This holiday season one message is clear: AI is leading the future of shopping and is reshaping how people discover, compare and decide what to purchase.

Shoppers aren’t typing, filtering and scrolling the way they used to. They’re asking questions, looking for recommendations, and trusting AI to find the best answers and products for them. That means the way brands show up is changing, too.

The ones winning are making it easy for AI to choose them. They’re prepping their product data behind the scenes. They’re making sure the product information on their own sites and the data they send to AI tools is accurate, complete and tells the full story of each product by delivering context-rich, detailed and brand-backed information (e.g., a product description that reads, "Lightweight mountain bike helmet with adjustable ventilation, perfect for long trail rides and compatible with goggles, great for all seasons, with a 5-star safety rating").

It’s the digital version of handing your personal shopper a list with every dimension, size, photo and preference included. When AI has that level of clarity, it can confidently represent your products the way you intended.

And just like a great personal shopper, AI can only work with what it’s given. If your product information leaves out key details like the fit, color, materials or who it’s best for, AI has less to work with and may choose something else. Brands that keep every detail current and easy to understand, from sizing to style to purpose, will be the ones shoppers find first, not just this holiday season but in the years ahead.

Al Williams is the general manager of B2C at Commerce, where she leads strategy and innovation to help brands grow in the age of AI-driven shopping.