Coalition Technologies' COO & Co-founder writes, “AI is being pushed onto consumers in channels they already use at unprecedented scales, and ecommerce merchants must respect that.”

After 16 years working in ecommerce marketing across brands, categories, platforms, and budget sizes, I can say the holiday season has a familiar rhythm.

Retailers rush out their gift guides. Consumers wait way longer than they should. Black Friday grows from a day to a week to a month to a quarter. Cyber Monday features one really truly new deal, and a lot of other reruns. Shipping cutoffs create panic. Store pickup saves a few people who deserve less luck than they get. And when it's all done, January brings returns.

That rhythm is still the center of holiday ecommerce.

2026 adds a new layer: reasoning.

I mean that carefully. AI did not take over search or shopping in 2024 or 2025. For most brands, it was a hyped up blip compared to Google, Amazon, retail media, email, SMS, paid search, organic search, and marketplaces. Even today, standalone LLMs are small fries next to Google. Meaningful small fries, sure, but still fries.

Coalition Technologies recently cited Datos data showing that traditional search accounted for about 10.5% of U.S. desktop activity in Q2 2026, while all standalone AI tools accounted for about 1.83%. Google’s U.S. desktop search user share reached 90.21% in June 2026. Google also serves AI Overviews inside Search, which means a large portion of AI-assisted search behavior still lives inside Google’s house. Nice house. Very large gates. Probably getting a new ballroom.

It’s important to make that note, because the first AI holiday will be misunderstood if we pretend shoppers are abandoning Google to have long chats with bots about sweaters. Honestly, it also points to a simpler reality. AI is being pushed onto consumers in channels they already use at unprecedented scales, and ecommerce merchants must respect that.

Google is shoveling agentic shopping features across Search, Gemini, Merchant Center, ads, payments, and Universal Cart. Google says Universal Cart works across retailers and services like Search and Gemini, with checkout through Google Pay or transfer to merchant sites.

I have been saying at Coalition that AI commerce is moving toward a marketplace-like experience, with a dose of influencer and affiliate logic mixed in. A shopper asks for a product, the system guides the product mix, the shopper refines, the model highlights some options over others, and then the assistant helps decide where to buy based on shipping, availability, price, and trust.

And here is where “reasoning” enters the holiday rhythm.

AI takes familiar gift discovery in a more conversational direction. The old blogger listicle gets consumed by the AI, its link disappearing, and the AI responsible for not only discovery, but also brand representation. Out of the old, it launches into a long form, enthusiastic narrative about how excited a twelve year old boy who is “into science” will receive their first telescope kit.

How we hunt for deals also gets an AI update. Typical holiday retail is full of fake urgency, recycled discounts, and confusing bundling approaches. AI will help compare prices, track availability, and even handle consumer alerts when prices get low enough. I’m evaluating a new desktop computer and have ChatGPT and Claude in competition hunting for deals that meet my criteria.

Perhaps most importantly, purchase validation gets made over. Holiday shoppers often buy for people they understand badly. AI helps reduce regret. A consumer can ask whether a product fits a recipient, whether reviews mention defects, whether a cheaper alternative is basically the same, whether the return policy is safe, and whether delivery timing creates risk.

A product page built for a human skimmer may fail an AI assistant trying to summarize fit, specs, sizing, warranty, ingredients, use cases, compatibility, review patterns, etc, etc. Brand owned website content that drives AI visibility will answer real buyer questions clearly, give models verifiable information, and connect the brand to specific prompts.

AI will also influence tangential categories. Holiday travel? Absolutely. LLMs have promoted travel planning as a key use case. Parties? Corporate events and gifting? Holiday playlists? Menus and recipes? Yes to all the above.

For brands, the AI channel work before peak season will be painfully practical.

Clean product feeds. Improve structured data. Build gift guides around real recipient types and use cases. Make comparison content useful. Put shipping, return, sizing, care, warranty, and compatibility information where humans and machines can find it. Strengthen reviews. Create content that answers the question a shopper would actually ask before buying.

Underpinning the first AI holiday will be all the familiar beats that we’re used to. AI’s role is to add reasoning inside that rhythm. It helps shoppers decide what to buy, why to buy it, where to buy it, and whether the gift will survive contact with the recipient.

For ecommerce marketers, that is enough to pay attention.

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