Optimove Insights: Nearly 3 in 4 Holiday Shoppers Use AI for Gift Ideas, and New Customers Surged 593% on Black Friday 2025

Consumer survey and behavioral data from 5.5 million customers show Black Friday and Cyber Monday are both a retention and an acquisition moment, with 47% of shoppers planning to explore new brands this season

New York, Oct. 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Optimove Insights today released its Black Friday and Cyber Monday Report 2026: Winning with Real-Time Data and AI. The new research from Optimove Insights combines a survey of 648 U.S. consumers with behavioral data from more than 5.5 million customers at leading e-commerce brands. It finds that AI assistants are becoming a starting point for holiday shopping: 72% of consumers surveyed use tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini for shopping ideas or gift recommendations, either regularly or occasionally. Optimove Insights is the analytical and research arm of Optimove, the creator of Positionless Marketing.

For marketers, the data points to a clear conclusion: Black Friday is not a choice between retention and acquisition. It is both at once. Loyal customers return in force, while first-time buyers arrive from more places than ever, including AI assistants. 

The Two Black Friday battles: 

Compared with the same brands' average day from January through October 2025: 

• Returning customers active on Black Friday rose 359%, and 267% on Cyber Monday 

• Orders rose 290% on Black Friday and 210% on Cyber Monday 

• New customers rose 593% on Black Friday and 404% on Cyber Monday. 

Looking ahead to the 2026 holiday shopping season: 

• 63% of consumers plan to wait for Black Friday or Cyber Monday to begin their holiday shopping 

• 47% plan to explore new brands, while 53% expect to shop only with brands they bought from last year 
• 49% regularly consult AI tools for shopping ideas or gift recommendations, 23% do so occasionally, and another 12% are open to it 

Returning-customer activity grew faster than orders on both days, which suggests that many loyal shoppers browse and compare before they buy. A customer restocking a favorite product and one exploring a new category may look the same in a segment, but they need very different responses. 

"Black Friday isn't a retention event or an acquisition event. It's both, happening in the same hours," said Pini Yakuel, CEO of Optimove. "Loyal customers are coming back, first-time buyers are arriving from AI assistants and everywhere else, and each one needs something different. Positionless Marketing gives marketers the power to recognize every shopper and act on real-time data instantly, deciding the right message, offer, and timing while attention is at its peak." 

AI Is Becoming a Discovery Layer 

As shoppers turn to AI assistants for recommendations, discovery increasingly begins outside a brand's own channels. The report advises brands to publish clear, accurate product information on use cases, pricing, availability, and promotions. That makes it easier for AI systems to surface their products when they are relevant to a shopper's request. 

The report also recommends that marketers treat the promotional period as two opportunities at once. The first is re-engaging existing customers based on their history and what they are browsing now. The second is turning first purchases into lasting relationships. 

The Black Friday and Cyber Monday Report 2026 is available here.

Methodology 

This report combines consumer survey data with first-party behavioral data from Optimove customers. It examines how shoppers approach Black Friday and Cyber Monday and how their behavior changes during the promotional period. 

Optimove surveyed 648 U.S. consumers in Spring 2026, ages 18+, with household incomes of $75,000+. The analysis focuses on shopping behaviors and attitudes, using both dedicated questions and related cross-survey data on discovery, decision-making, messaging, payments, and multichannel behavior. The survey is forward-looking and measured holiday shopping intentions for 2026, including when consumers plan to begin shopping, their willingness to explore new brands, and their use of AI tools for shopping ideas and gift recommendations. 

The behavioral analysis is based on historical data and covers more than 5.5 million customers across leading e-commerce brands. Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2025 activity was compared with the brands' average daily performance from January through October 2025, including changes in active customers, new customers, and order volume. 

About Optimove 

Optimove, the creator of Positionless Marketing, frees marketing teams from the limitations of fixed roles, giving every marketer the power to execute any marketing task instantly and independently. Positionless Marketing has been proven to improve campaign efficiency by 88%, allowing marketing teams to create more personalized engagement with existing customers. 

For three years running, Optimove has been positioned as a Visionary in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs. In the 2026 edition, it is ranked #1 for Real-Time Personalization and Decisioning among the 12 vendors evaluated. 

Its Positionless Marketing Platform includes Optimove Engage and Orchestrate for cross-channel campaign decisioning and orchestration; Optimove Personalize, a digital personalization engine; and Optimove Gamify, a loyalty and gamification platform. 

All are powered by Optimove AI, the marketing AI suite that brings AI everywhere marketers work: inside the platform through Native AI agents for decisioning, analysis, and creation, outside it to external AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT through the Optimove MCP, and into custom-built applications on top of the platform through Optimove Custom Apps. Optimove has embedded AI in its platform since 2012, paving the way for Positionless Marketing. 

Today, its comprehensive AI-powered suite is at the leading edge of empowering marketers to streamline workflows from Insight to Creation and through Optimization. Optimove provides industry-specific and use-case solutions for leading consumer brands globally. 

About Optimove Insights

Optimove Insights is the analytical and research arm of Optimove, dedicated to providing valuable industry insights and data-driven research to empower B2C businesses.

Attachments

• Optimove Insights: Nearly 3 in 4 Holiday Shoppers Use AI for Gift Ideas
• Optimove Isights: Black Friday Cyber Monday Cause Massive Shopping Surge

Rob Wyse
Optimove
2129201470
rob_w@optimove.com