Holiday shoppers are gradually warming to AI tools, but with clear boundaries. According to Gartner's 2026 Holiday Advertising and Consumer Trends report, one-third of consumers are very or extremely willing to use generative-AI-backed tools or chatbots for gift recommendations, yet only 13% currently do. Consumers are most comfortable using AI at the beginning of their shopping journey as a source of inspiration and to compare prices across products.
However, shoppers firmly resist letting AI complete purchases. Survey data from William Blair found that a majority of respondents would not allow AI to make a purchase without human review, and most were unwilling to share banking or credit card data with the technology, citing concerns about data breaches and unauthorized transactions. Consumers view the act of gift selection as deeply personal and want to maintain final decision-making authority. For commerce practitioners, this reveals a critical gap: AI adoption is strongest in early-stage discovery and price comparison, where nearly two-thirds of consumers have used AI occasionally or frequently. The most common use case is price comparison and deal hunting, particularly as concerns about dynamic pricing intensify. Major retailers like Walmart are investing in agentic tools across the buying journey, but broad adoption for purchase completion will require overcoming trust barriers and demonstrating data security.
Regulatory scrutiny is adding pressure on the pricing front. The Federal Trade Commission recently ordered Walmart, Target, and other major retailers to provide information on their use of personal data for price-setting, and the agency joined 20 states in suing Dollar General for alleged deceptive pricing practices. As underlying AI models improve and retailers gain confidence deploying generative AI in customer experiences, the holiday season may mark the inflection point where consumers begin to feel agentic commerce more tangibly—but primarily in the discovery and comparison phases rather than checkout.