Do shoppers use AI to find Black Friday deals?

How many shoppers expect to use AI for Black Friday?

Most of them, according to one 2026 survey.

Savings ran an online survey of 1,603 US adults in September 2026, weighted to the national adult population by age, sex and ethnicity, and Savings reports the results below. Savings found that 77% of shoppers expect to use an AI tool or AI-powered search to find Black Friday or Cyber Monday deals and gifts this year. The question is about expectation, not about what shoppers will do on the day, so treat it as a sign of intent.

Cordial's holiday consumer survey points the same way from the use case side. Cordial found that the top AI use cases are comparing prices and finding deals (43%) and comparing products or brands (38%). In other words, the first jobs shoppers hand to an assistant are the ones that decide which stores they look at.

Will shoppers trust the deals AI finds?

They plan to check them.

Savings found that 48% of AI shoppers would verify deals or promo codes surfaced by AI on another site before buying. That is a step shoppers take on their own, and it means the click lands on a store's page or a third-party page that the shopper compares with the answer.

Trust in the helper itself depends on who offers it. Synchrony and Oxford Economics found that consumers would be likely to trust an AI shopping assistant from a technology company (58%), a retailer or brand (56%) or a general AI platform (55%). All three figures in the Synchrony and Oxford Economics study sit between 55% and 58%.

How much are shoppers willing to hand over to AI?

Small tasks first.

Synchrony and Oxford Economics found that 79% of consumers are willing to let AI automatically apply discounts and 74% to apply loyalty points or rewards. Synchrony and Oxford Economics also found that 43% are comfortable letting AI purchase up to a preset limit. The pattern is a ladder: shoppers accept help with discounts first and only some go as far as buying.

For a store, that is a reason to keep its own published offer terms, such as discounts and rewards, accurate and easy to read.

What can go wrong when an assistant describes your store?

It can name someone else, or describe you with details that are out of date.

If an assistant answers a deal question with a shortlist that leaves you out, the shopper who checks "another site" will compare you with the stores that were named. If it names you with an old return window, a discontinued product or a wrong promotion, the shopper who verifies it finds the mismatch on your own page.

What should a store check before Black Friday?

Start with what assistants say today, then fix what they rely on.

1. Step 1Write the deal questions shoppers ask. For example the best price on a type of product, a gift idea for a type of buyer or which stores offer a certain promotion, all without your brand name in them.
2. Step 2Ask several assistants. Put each question to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok and Perplexity in a fresh conversation.
3. Step 3Record who is named. Note which stores each answer recommends, which it only mentions and whether yours appears.
4. Step 4Compare the details with your own pages. Check promotion terms, prices, shipping and return windows in each answer against what your site says today.
5. Step 5Note the sources behind the answers. Write down which pages and reviews the assistants cite when they name a store.
6. Step 6Fix the pages, then ask again. Update your own offer pages and the public profiles the answers rely on, then repeat the same questions.

How does EntityRise measure what assistants say about a company?

EntityRise is an AI visibility audit for agencies and companies that shows how ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok and Perplexity describe and recommend a company and what to improve first.

Each audit asks up to 40 buyer questions: you mark 15 as high priority and they go to all five assistants, and up to 25 more are each asked on one assistant, for up to 100 answers kept with their sources. The AI Visibility Index weighs recommendation at 30%, mention at 20%, prominence at 20%, citation support at 15% and description accuracy at 15%, so it measures both whether you are named and whether what is said about you is right.

The result is a PDF report of around 40 pages with the analysis assistant by assistant, your main competitors compared area by area and an ordered list of what to improve. You can start the audit, and agencies can run it for clients under their own name.