There was a moment after this Thanksgiving weekend when I read something that caught me off guard. It was not about special discounts or even the record breaking spending numbers this year. It was the fact that a huge chunk of the world was not hunting for deals by themselves anymore, they were letting AI do it for them.
According to Reuters, AI shopping agents influenced an estimated 14.2 billion dollars in online sales globally during Black Friday 2025. That is not a typo. It was from tools integrated into browsers, apps, and messaging assistants that guided people toward better prices, sent alerts of drops, compared items instantly, or applied discount codes automatically.
If you shopped online this weekend, there is a good chance you might have used one of these tools without even realizing it.
How AI Stepped In
Consumers were busy setting new records this year. Early data from Adobe Analytics showed that Black Friday online spending reached 11.8 billion dollars, which was already impressive, but Cyber Monday was even more impressive, hitting 14.25 billion dollars, marking the biggest online shopping day in U.S. history. Cyber Week collectively pulled in more than 44 billion dollars.
But the big story is not necessarily the totals, it is the shift in how people arrived at them.
A New Way We Shop
Shoppers are evolving more and more every year. They use price-drop bots, AI powered comparison tools, or shopping assistants embedded in messaging apps. All these tools help shoppers buy intentionally rather than impulsively. That is what makes the AI angle so interesting. AI did not just help people save money, it has changed the rhythm of holiday spending entirely.
Even the way deals roll out nowadays, it seems like everything is catered more toward mobile shopping. Adobe noted that mobile shopping hit an all time high, which makes sense when you combine AI agents with phones. You could be watching a movie, cooking dinner, or in line at Starbucks and your AI tool lets you know, “This just dropped fifteen percent. Want it?” You tap once and you’re done.
That is very different energy than waking up at four in the morning and sprinting into a store hoping for a discounted TV.
People still bought plenty, but it did not carry the same frantic tone as the Black Fridays we used to know. Shoppers were strategic. They let technology remove the messy parts, which created a smoother and frictionless expierence.
What People Bought
The items that sold best reflected that same mindset. Adobe found that electronics topped the charts as usual, but the next biggest category was household essentials. Things people needed anyway but waited to buy until the right deal appeared.
Buy Now Pay Later usage also increased according to Adobe, which was to be expected if you read our other story about Black Friday a couple of weeks ago. But shoppers paired it with more careful budgeting. AI agents are not just recommending what you should buy, they are shaping how you spend altogether.
Something else happened this year as well. Retailers leaned into real time personalization harder than ever. If you viewed a product once, you probably saw a targeted discount later. If you added something to your cart and left it, you likely got a message or email about it before the weekend ended.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2025 did not erase in-store shopping, but you can still feel the shift. For many people, going to a store isn’t really necessary anymore.
It might sound dramatic to say this weekend marks a turning point, but the numbers make it hard to argue otherwise. When AI agents influence more than fourteen billion dollars in global spending, something big is happening. People are learning to outsource part of the process to tools that do not sleep, do not miss details, and do not get overwhelmed by too many open tabs.
The funniest part is that it did not feel futuristic. It felt like any other holiday season splurge.
Black Friday used to belong to crowds and chaos, and now it belongs to algorithms.