Black Friday is 22 days away.

Two in five shoppers will use generative AI to get through it.

That’s Accenture’s 2026 holiday survey, 4,048 Americans, up from one in three last year.

Here’s what they’ll let it do.

73% are open to working with an AI agent to find the best option.

58% will let an agent execute specific tasks on request.

39% will use it to hunt down and apply deals.

21% will hand it returns, refunds and service complaints.

Think about that.

The customer isn’t browsing your site anymore.

Their agent is.

It doesn’t care about your hero banner.

Here’s the gap.

Narvar asked 100 retail decision-makers how confident they are using AI to improve the shopping experience.

8% said very confident.

65% of their customers plan to use AI to shop this season.

Translation: the shopper upgraded and the store didn’t. 😅

Here’s where it gets expensive.

Talkdesk surveyed 312 retail decision-makers for its 2026 holiday report, out yesterday.

58% had an AI error in the past 12 months.

29% of those lost a customer because of it.

31% said an AI tool took an incorrect action on a customer account, like issuing a refund nobody approved.

Sit with that.

Last week the banks found agents moving money nobody asked them to move.

This week retailers are saying their own AI did the same thing to customer accounts.

One more number from the same report.

Only 15% of shoppers would let an agent use their payment details, even with a review step.

So the agent will find the product, compare the price and fill the cart.

Then it hands the card back to a human.

That handoff is where your checkout either works or loses the sale.

One more from a Zendesk survey out the same day.

41% of shoppers have abandoned a cart because a chatbot couldn’t answer a basic question about shipping or stock.

Let me explain what to do with 22 days.

Ask an AI to buy something from your store, out loud, and watch where it gets stuck.

Check that your product pages answer questions in plain text an agent can read, not in images.

Look at every place your chatbot can take an action on an account and decide whether it should.

Speaking of customers you already have...

Everyone’s chasing the new shopper with the robot.

The fastest revenue in the next 22 days is the people who already bought from you once.

I put together a free workbook for finding the deals sitting in your CRM, inbox and past-client list.

It shows you how to reopen each one with respectful, AI-assisted follow-up you approve before it sends.

👉 Get the AI Pipeline Revival System (free)

The robot shopper is new.

Your old customers still read email. 😏

Are you ready to reach holiday shoppers on CTV? For many streamers, the season is already underway.

Last year, according to Roku internal data, holiday content searches on Roku saw an 86% increase during October. And in November, those searches rise an average of 39% weekly. This surging holiday spirit is mirrored by consumer activity, as about half of Roku streamers shopped Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals in 2025.

Meeting those shoppers is easier than you might think. Begin with the seasonal outcome you hope to drive: awareness, online sales, leads, store visits, or another measurable goal. From there, define your audience, upload your creative, set the budget and campaign dates, and establish measurement before launching. You can even create a shoppable ad unit that lets streamers buy with a click of their remote.

Our holiday playbook offers a month-by-month guide to reaching shoppers during this all-important time of year.

First-time spenders get a $5,000 match on the first $5,000 spent with code BEEHIIV5K. Terms apply.

Launch your campaign today.