Salesforce is predicting that AI and AI agents will drive $263 billion in global ecommerce sales this holiday season
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Salesforce, in its annual holiday forecast, said it is expecting a robust holiday season, marked by a fundamental shift in how consumers shop, due to growing use of AI recommendations.
The forecast, released today and based on data drawn from Salesforce platforms Commerce Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud and Agentforce, predicts that global ecommerce sales in November and December will reach a record $1.25 trillion, an increase worldwide of 4%.
In the U.S., online sales are projected to increase 2.1%.
“The way consumers are shopping is changing at a fundamental level,” the report states, noting that AI and agents are projected to drive 21% of all holiday orders globally, resulting in $263 billion in sales.
Salesforce reported it has seen a dramatic increase in the use of AI assistants like ChatGPT and Gemini to make purchasing decisions.
The percentage of U.S. consumers that start their search for products by using AI chat assistants jumped 38% between May and August.
According to Salesforce consumer surveys and research, 20% of U.S. shoppers used AI at some point in their buying journey over the past six months. The majority of AI users – 57% – are using AI search while in stores, and 87% said they trust AI recommendations.
AI channels also are quite effective at turning recommendations into purchases. Conversion rates from AI channels were 700% higher than social media traffic in the first half of this year, and 200% higher than traffic sources such as traditional search, Salesforce reported.
Those AI statistics mean that figure out how to show up in AI recommendations is becoming vitally important for brands and retailers.
“The ability to optimize a site’s product listings, promotions, and messaging for emerging generative AI search experiences will be a crucial strategy for brands,” Salesforce reported.
Caila Schwartz, Director of Strategy and Consumer Insights at Salesforce, in a media briefing on the report, said how to optimize for AI search is “the number one” topic on retailers’ minds.
“In the past two months I’ve had over 50 conversations with our customers on holiday,” Schwartz said, “and the number one thing that gets talked about is how do I show up in these LLM (Large Language Model) searches, how do I show up in ChatGPT, how do I get my product in front of these searches. It is the number one,” she said.
The Salesforce holiday report is packed with insights about how, where and when consumers will spend in November and December. The standout insights include:
- A growing consumer preference for saving money, and sustainability, will drive $64 billion in secondhand sales during the holiday season, with 46% of shoppers planning to give a previously owned item as a gift.
- While the report forecasts digital spending, it notes that most spending still will occur in physical stores, especially for Gen Z shoppers. For every $1 a Gen Z shopper spends online, they are projected to spend $3 in a brick-and-mortar store.
- Black Friday, traditionally known as the day of doorbuster store events and crowded malls, is seeing less in-store spending than the Saturday and Sunday after Black Friday.
Salesforce is expecting the theme for the 2025 holiday season will be “discovery” and both retailers and shoppers try to figure out the new AI methods for discovering products and deals.