• by Laurie Sullivan , Yesterday

U.S. consumers are expected to spend a record $253.4 billion online this holiday season -- up 5.3% year-over-year from November 1-December 31, according to Adobe Analytics’ annual shopping forecast.

The greatest area of uncertainty in the shopping outlook is how much artificial intelligence (AI) will influence those purchases. 

Cyber Week -- the five-day period that includes Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday -- is expected to drive 17.2% of overall spend, totaling about $43.7 billion, up 6.3% YoY.

Adobe expects that pre-season discounts like Amazon Prime Day, running today and Wednesday, will “entice” shoppers to begin holiday shopping early.

For Amazon Prime Day, Adobe Analytics data forecasts consumers will spend $9 billion for the two days, representing 6.2% growth year-over-year (YoY). Discounts are expected to peak at 17% off the listed price.

Buy Now Pay Later will drive $723 million in online spend -- up 8.1% YoY -- as consumers seek greater flexibility in managing budgets, according to Adobe.

Mobile shopping is set to account for a 50.5% share of overall spending across both days, compared with purchases on desktop. The share represents $4.55 billion in spending -- up 12.7% YoY, according to Adobe data.

But as the calendar ticks on toward the end of the year and consumers enter traditional holiday shopping days, the biggest unknown for 2025 is how much of ecommerce sales artificial intelligence (AI) will drive. From advertising to optimization, outcomes this year seem less of an unknown.

Research brand visibility platform Yext suggests visibility from AI search is not random. It is driven by structured, consistent information distributed across the appropriate sources such as websites, social media, search engines, and AI-driven engines.

These platforms are considered citations that make references to a business's name, address and phone number, for example.

Retail relies on its owned websites, with 47.6% of citations come from first-party websites, underscoring the importance of structured, authoritative local pages.

This surge in AI use has made the visibility of brands a critical concern for marketers, with 64% participating in the survey suggesting they are unsure how to measure success in AI search today.

Seventy-two percent of survey participants believe AI search will have a bigger impact on customer acquisition than traditional SEO within three years.

First-party websites participating in the study found that AI generated 2.9 million (44%) citations, ahead of listings at 2.9 million (42%), and reviews and social at 545,000 (8%).

Forums with feeds like Reddit are less influential than expected. These platforms accounted for just 2% of citations once location context and query intent were applied.

Gemini favors websites at 52.1%, while OpenAI leans on listings at 48.7% and Perplexity diversifies across MapQuest and TripAdvisor.

For unbranded, objective queries -- often the most discoverable -- first-party websites and local pages made up nearly 60% of citations. Branded or subjective queries leaned more heavily on listings and reviews.

The results from Yext are based on an analysis of 6.8 million AI citations collected from 1.6 million queries per model across OpenAI ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Perplexity between July 1 and August 31, 2025.

The queries were structured to test four intent quadrants (branded/unbranded × objective/subjective) across four industries: retail, financial services, healthcare, and food service.