Fabrizio Gutiérrez is Head of Growth & Marketing at Landbot, with over 15 years of international experience in growth, marketing, and go-to-market strategy. Throughout his career, he has helped companies navigate different stages of growth — from early-stage expansion to global scale, M&A, and IPO environments. His expertise spans SaaS, product-led growth, digital marketing, and revenue strategy, with a strong focus on connecting product, marketing, and sales to drive sustainable growth. Today, he is particularly focused on how AI is reshaping go-to-market and the way companies acquire, engage, and convert customers
Black Friday Statistics: AI Brings the Shopper. Your Agent Closes the Sale.
The 2025 results and 2026 forecasts on AI traffic, AI-influenced sales, and support volume, what each number really measures, and what to do with it before November 27.
What do the Black Friday statistics say about AI and agents?
AI traffic to US retail sites grew 693% in 2025, and AI and agents influenced 20% of global Cyber Week orders, worth $67 billion.
The AI assistant brings the shopper to your store already half-decided. Whether they buy depends on what answers them once they land.
Key Takeaways
Black Friday 2026 is forecast at $12.9 billion in US online sales, inside a record $275.1 billion holiday season.
AI traffic to retail sites grew 693% in 2025 and is forecast to grow another 130% this season, from a still-small base.
AI and agents influenced 20% of global Cyber Week orders in 2025, worth $67 billion.
Service peaks with sales: conversations handled by service agents rose 55% in Black Week 2025.
Shoppers split the job: general AI tools for ideas and deals, the brand's own agent for orders, returns, and service.
Trust is conditional: half of shoppers worry about privacy and misleading answers from AI.
The Arrival Test: four questions to check whether your site can convert a shopper who already asked an AI.
How Big Is Black Friday in 2026?
Black Friday 2026 is forecast to bring $12.9 billion in US online sales, up 9.2% on last year. It sits inside the biggest online holiday season on record: Adobe expects $275.1 billion from November 1 to December 31, with Cyber Week alone at $47.5 billion.
Prompt sent to the agentThe visitor wants to know if Black Friday matters for their business. Ask their market, what they sell, and last year's November vs average-month sales, then recommend which week of the Black November plan to start with.
According to Adobe's 2026 holiday forecast, mobile will carry 63% of Cyber Week spend, above its 57.4% share of spend across the full season. The deepest discounts land between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. Black Friday is still the peak for toys, TVs, apparel, and furniture deals.
The global picture is bigger. Salesforce's Cyber Week 2025 data puts last year's global Cyber Week at $336.6 billion, with $79 billion on Black Friday alone.
Black Friday Statistics: 2025 Results vs 2026 Forecast (US Online)
METRIC
2025 RESULT
2026 FORECAST
Holiday season (Nov 1–Dec 31)
$257.8B (+6.8%)
$275.1B (+6.7%)
Cyber Week
$44.2B (+7.7%)
$47.5B (+7.4%)
Black Friday
$11.8B (+9.1%)
$12.9B (+9.2%)
Cyber Monday
$14.25B (+7.1%)
$15.1B (+6.2%)
Mobile share of season spend
56.4%
57.4%
Source: Adobe Analytics, 2025 season results and 2026 forecast. Cyber Monday 2026 is November 30.
The headline in these Black Friday statistics is growth of 7% to 9%. The more useful signal is where that growth comes from, and how much of it starts in a conversation with an AI.
How Much Black Friday Traffic Comes From AI?
AI traffic is the fastest-growing source of Black Friday visits, but it's still a small share. Adobe's 2025 season results show traffic from generative AI tools to US retail sites grew 693.4% year over year, and Adobe notes the user base "remains modest."
Prompt sent to the agentThe visitor wants to act on AI referral traffic. Ask which analytics tool they use, their top landing pages, and the most common pre-purchase question, then recommend which page gets an agent first.
For 2026, Adobe forecasts AI traffic up another 130% for the season: up 159% on Thanksgiving, 95% on Black Friday, and 88% on Cyber Monday. Growth is slowing in percentage terms because the base is no longer tiny.
Salesforce goes further. Its 2026 holiday predictions say 20% of holiday ecommerce traffic will come from AI chat agents. Read that number carefully: it includes backend agents and competitor scrapers, not only shoppers. The same report finds 50% of shoppers use an AI assistant at some point in their journey.
Survey data points the same way. In Criteo's September 2026 shopper survey of 10,500 consumers, 42% would use an AI assistant to choose a gift, and another 40% are open to it.
What these Black Friday statistics mean: a growing share of your Black Friday visitors arrive after asking an AI. They've compared, shortlisted, and come with one specific question left. A landing page that makes them search for the answer wastes the work the AI already did.
Nordic StoreONLINE
Does the Trail 22 backpack fit a 16-inch laptop?
Yes ✓ The padded sleeve fits laptops up to 16". Black Friday price: €69 (−30%) until Nov 30.
Add to cartSee colors
Go to checkout
The shopper arrives with one question; the agent answers it from the catalog.
How Much Do AI Agents Influence Black Friday Sales?
AI and agents influenced 20% of global Cyber Week orders in 2025, worth $67 billion, according to Salesforce. "Influenced" means the order involved AI-powered product recommendations or conversational customer service along the way, not that an agent placed the order itself.
Prompt sent to the agentThe visitor wants to pick a first Black Friday agent. Ask their biggest bottleneck (product questions, deal questions, carts, or orders), channels in use, and team size on Black Friday, then recommend one of the 10 Black Friday agents.
20%
of global Cyber Week 2025 orders were influenced by AI and agents, worth $67 billion (Salesforce)
The gap between stores with and without their own agent is the number to watch. Salesforce reports that retailers using branded agents grew sales 32% faster during Cyber Week 2025. For the full 2025 holiday season, retailers with a branded AI shopping agent grew 6.2%, against 3.9% for those without.
That's a correlation, not proof: stores that deploy agents early tend to be stronger digitally anyway. But the direction is clear enough that Salesforce expects 1 in 3 ecommerce sites to have a site-specific shopping agent live by Cyber Week 2026.
WHERE THE AI WORKS
WHAT SHOPPERS USE IT FOR
WHO OWNS THE ANSWER
General assistants (ChatGPT, Gemini)
Gift ideas, comparisons, promo codes
The model, from public data
Marketplaces and social apps
Discovery and impulse buys
The platform
Your own site and WhatsApp
Product fit, stock, orders, returns, service
You, from your catalog and rules
The first two rows bring the shopper. The last row is the only one where you decide what gets said.
What Happens to Customer Service During Black Week?
Customer service volume rises with sales, and much of the extra work now goes to agents. In Cyber Week 2025, Salesforce saw conversations handled by service agents rise 55% week over week, and agent actions such as updating delivery addresses and starting returns rise 70%.
Prompt sent to the agentThe visitor wants to size support automation. Ask their weekly ticket volume, top three ticket reasons, and whether they use a help desk, then estimate which reasons an agent can resolve and where the handoff goes.
Those questions decide whether a Black Friday buyer comes back. Where is my order? Can I change the address? How do I return this? Salesforce's research shows shoppers prefer general AI tools for ideas and deals, but prefer the brand's own agent for order management, returns, loyalty, and service.
There's a sales angle too. In Adobe's July 2026 survey of 5,000 consumers who use AI to shop, 77% feel more confident in their purchases and 69% say they're less likely to return items they bought with AI help. Fewer doubts before checkout mean fewer tickets after it.
Nordic StoreONLINE
Where is my order #4821?
Shipped ✓ Arrives Monday, Dec 1.
Can I return the blue one?
Yes, until Jan 15. Your label is ready.
Get my return label
Order status and returns resolved without a ticket; complex cases go to the team with the order attached.
Shoppers trust AI answers more than they used to, but the trust is conditional. Salesforce finds 74% of shoppers trust AI chat product recommendations, and 41% say a brand's own AI assistant makes them "much more confident" in a purchase.
Prompt sent to the agentThe visitor worries about wrong answers. Ask what sources the agent would use (catalog, policy, FAQs), which topics are off-limits, and who takes over, then explain how to limit the agent to defined knowledge with a human handoff.
The doubts are just as specific. In Criteo's survey, 50% of shoppers cite privacy concerns about AI in shopping and 48% cite misleading information. Only 46% trust AI-driven product recommendations outright.
That split is the design brief for any Black Friday agent:
SHOPPERS REWARD
SHOPPERS PUNISH
An answer grounded in your real stock, prices, and policy
A confident answer that turns out to be wrong
A deal explained with its deadline and conditions
A discount the checkout doesn't honor
A person one tap away for the hard cases
A loop with no way out
Clear consent before a follow-up message
A broadcast they never asked for
Full transparency: Landbot is our product, and we build AI agents for websites and WhatsApp. That's why we track Black Friday statistics closely, and why the test below is about your setup, not ours.
The Arrival Test: Can Your Site Convert a Shopper Who Already Asked an AI?
These Black Friday statistics say more shoppers will land on your site with a shortlist and one question left. Score each question from 0 to 10 (0 = the shopper leaves, 10 = the shopper buys).
Landbot · Framework
The Arrival Test
Whether your site converts a shopper who already asked an AI. Score each question 0 to 10.
1
5
When a visitor lands with a specific question ("does this fit a 13-inch laptop?"), can they get the answer in one step?
A product page with the answer buried in the specs scores low. An agent that answers from your catalog scores high.
0 · the shopper leaves10 · the shopper buys
2
5
Can a shopper confirm which offer applies to them, until when, and with which conditions, without leaving the page?
A banner that says "up to 50% off" with no detail scores low.
0 · the shopper leaves10 · the shopper buys
3
5
If questions triple on Black Friday morning, does the response time stay the same?
A shared inbox with two people on shift scores low.
0 · the shopper leaves10 · the shopper buys
4
5
Can a buyer track an order, change an address, or start a return without waiting for a person?
Email-only support in Black Week scores low.
0 · the shopper leaves10 · the shopper buys
Your score
20 / 40
Fix first
How to read your score
TOTAL
WHAT IT MEANS
FIX FIRST
0–15
AI traffic will leak before checkout
First answer: put an agent on your top product and deal pages
16–30
You convert the easy visits, not the specific ones
Deal clarity and peak capacity: load your Black Friday rules into the agent
31–40
Ready for the arrival
Measure AI-referred visits separately and test the handoff
The AI did the shopping. Your site has to do the answering.
BLACK NOVEMBER PLAN
NOV 12 → NOV 30
What Should You Do With These Numbers Before November 27?
Use these Black Friday statistics to decide where your first agent goes and what it must know before the rush. Start with the pages AI visitors land on, then the questions they ask most. The plan below follows the same four weeks as the hub: build, go live, warm up, and handle the rush.
WEEK
DO THIS
This week
Check your analytics for AI referrals (chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com) and list the pages they land on
Nov 16–20
Put an agent on those pages, starting from a Black Friday chatbot template, and load deals, stock rules, and the return policy
Nov 23–26
Test with last year's real questions, including the handoff to a person and order-status requests
Nov 27–30
Watch answers, not just sessions: unanswered questions, handoffs, and AI-referred conversion
With Landbot, you build the agent once and publish it on your website and on WhatsApp, so a shopper gets the same answer on both. If WhatsApp is part of your plan, our guide to WhatsApp for Black Friday covers templates, opt-in, and the new per-message pricing.
Turn Black Friday Statistics Into Your Peak-Season Plan
The Black Friday statistics for 2026 tell one story from three angles. More shoppers start with an AI, more orders involve an agent, and more of the post-purchase work runs through one. The stores that grow are the ones that answer well once the shopper arrives.
AI brings the shopper. Your agent closes the sale.
Try the 10 Black Friday agents in our Black November hub, or try Landbot free and have your first agent live before November 27.
Free trial · No credit card required · Same agent on your site and WhatsApp
Frequently Asked Questions
Black Friday 2026 is on Friday, November 27, the day after US Thanksgiving. Cyber Monday falls on November 30. Most retailers now run offers across the whole of November, so peak traffic starts well before the day itself.
No. In Salesforce's definition, an AI-influenced order involved AI recommendations or conversational service somewhere in the journey. The shopper still decided and paid. Orders placed autonomously by an agent on a shopper's behalf are a much smaller, separate category.
Look at referral traffic from AI domains such as chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com, and copilot.microsoft.com in your analytics. Group them into one channel, then compare conversion and order value with search and social. Some AI visits arrive without a referrer, so treat the number as a floor.
Partly. Adobe's figures cover US online spend only. Salesforce's Cyber Week data is global, across 89 countries. In Spain, IAB Spain's 2025 ecommerce study found 13% of online shoppers already use AI for product recommendations, lower than US surveys but growing.
Some will. In 2025, Salesforce found 48% of shoppers who already use AI for shopping were open to an agent making a purchase for them. For Black Friday 2026, the bigger opportunity is still answering and guiding the shopper who buys on your site.
No, and it shouldn't try. An agent handles the repetitive volume, such as order status, sizes, stock, and return eligibility. Your team handles exceptions and complaints, with the order details already attached when the conversation reaches them.
Fabrizio Gutiérrez is Head of Growth & Marketing at Landbot, with over 15 years of international experience in growth, marketing, and go-to-market strategy. Throughout his career, he has helped companies navigate different stages of growth — from early-stage expansion to global scale, M&A, and IPO environments. His expertise spans SaaS, product-led growth, digital marketing, and revenue strategy, with a strong focus on connecting product, marketing, and sales to drive sustainable growth. Today, he is particularly focused on how AI is reshaping go-to-market and the way companies acquire, engage, and convert customers
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