The news: US shoppers are approaching the holiday season cautiously, and many are becoming more price-sensitive. To stay in budget, consumers plan to turn to AI, per Visa’s Holiday Spending Shift survey.

• 54% of US adults have already used AI for at least one shopping task this year, up from 47% last year.
• 61% of shoppers were open to letting AI manage price comparison. 59% said the same for checking availability of gifts, 57% for finding discounts, and 54% for finding gift ideas.

Gen Zers are even more eager for an AI boost: More than 8 in 10 are open to using AI to holiday shop.

Why this matters: Consumers are taking to AI platforms to support their holiday shopping—making it critical for payment providers and merchants to be visible in those results.

• 54% of Gen Zers and millennials prefer using chatbots over traditional search when looking for “direct” answers to their queries, per Gracenote.
• And 50% of Gen Xers prefer AI platforms for “comprehensive” answers over traditional search.

We forecast that AI-driven retail ecommerce sales will comprise 15.8% of all retail ecommerce sales by 2030.

Recommendations for merchants: As consumers get more price conscious, AI platforms will offer an easy way for shoppers to double check they’re getting the best product or the best deal.

Merchants need to prepare for changes in consumer discovery:

• Invest in AI visibility tools. Design digital storefronts that can be easily read by AI agents and can be surfaced on AI platforms. Rankings like our AI Visibility Index can give merchants a sense of how they stack up against competitors.
• Integrate third-party apps on platforms. Payment integration on chatbots is uneven. Merchants should consider building their own third-party checkout apps on platforms like ChatGPT to capture AI-native shoppers.

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