American consumers spent US$11.8 billion (A$18.08 billion) online this Black Friday, with much of this driven by AI-powered shopping tools.
This was record spending according to Adobe Analytics and marks a 9.1% increase from 2024, when consumers spent US$10.8 billion online.
The spending growth on the biggest sale day of the year as Christmas budgets tighten, unemployment nears a four-year high, and U.S. consumer confidence reaches a seven-month low.
Reuters also reported that this sets the stage for an even bigger surge on Cyber Monday, which is projected to drive US$14.2 billion in sales, a 6.3% rise year-over-year.
For the total shopping season, Adobe is projecting US$253.4 billion in spending this year, compared to US$241.1 billion in 2024.
In the period from 1 November to 28 November, Adobe reported that there was a 7.1% rise in spending from last year to US$111.4 billion.
Adobe also found that AI is changing how consumers shop, predicting traffic from AI sources to retail sites to increase by 515% to 520% from the 2024 holiday season.
Traffic from AI sources already grew 805% year-over-year from 1 November to 28 November.
Salesforce also had similar findings as it reported that between Thanksgiving and Black Friday AI agents influenced US$22 billion in global online sales.
