Shopify: 65% of Holiday Shoppers Will Use AI

What Happened

On October 6, 2026 Shopify published its 2026 Global Holiday Retail Report and declared this the "first holiday season of the agentic era." Based on a survey of roughly 18,000 consumers, the report finds that 65% of shoppers say they will use AI for at least one shopping task this season — discovering, comparing, or deciding on gifts. Shopify frames AI as moving from a novelty to a routine part of the path to purchase, reshaping how merchants get found.

The report also surfaced early proof that AI discovery is now measurable revenue. Stanley 1913 recorded five times as many AI-referred orders in the U.S. as the same window last year; clean-beauty brand ILIA saw AI-referred sales nearly triple year over year; and hypoallergenic apparel label Cottonique grew AI-referred sales 276% YoY while its total sales rose 52%. Shopify is tying these outcomes to two products, Shopify Catalog, which structures product data so agents can read it, and Agentic Storefronts, which place products inside channels like ChatGPT, Google, and Muse.

Key Facts

• 65% of shoppers say they will use AI for at least one shopping task during the 2026 holiday season (Shopify 2026 Global Holiday Retail Report, survey of ~18,000 consumers).
• 71% of regular AI users say they are more likely to choose an independent brand this year than last.
• 81% of shoppers who use AI regularly say they are choosing more products because those picks "feel personal, intentional, or considered."
• Only about one-third of shoppers trust an AI agent to complete a purchase on their behalf — and 35% will choose the best-fit product even when it isn't the cheapest.
• Stanley 1913 logged 5x AI-referred U.S. orders YoY; ILIA's AI-referred sales nearly tripled; Cottonique's AI-referred sales grew 276% YoY with total sales up 52%.
• Shopify is leaning on Catalog (structured product data for agents) and Agentic Storefronts (products surfaced in ChatGPT, Google, and Muse) to capture AI-driven demand.

Why This Matters for Shopify Merchants

For Shopify merchants the headline number — 65% — is a forecast about where consideration begins, not a trend piece. When nearly two-thirds of holiday shoppers let an AI shortlist, compare, or recommend gifts, the brands that win are the ones whose product data an agent can parse and trust. That is the same discipline behind Stanley 1913's AI search playbook: complete specs, clear positioning, and machine-readable attributes so a model can confidently recommend you over a competitor. Merchants who leave descriptions thin will be invisible in the AI answer even if they rank in Google.

The more subtle signal is the trust gap and the indie-brand surge. Only a third of shoppers will let an agent actually buy for them, but 71% of frequent AI users are more open to independent brands — which favors Shopify's SMB base over big-box incumbents. This mirrors what we covered in the 8x growth in agentic referral traffic and Shopify auto-enrolling stores in new AI channels: the agents are browsing, but the human still clicks "buy" on your site. The practical conclusion is that agentic commerce this holiday is an optimization and traffic problem, not a fully autonomous checkout one — merchants should win the recommendation and then convert on their own storefront.

That reframes Q4 prep. Rather than treating AI as a side experiment, Shopify's report makes AI visibility a holiday-blocking requirement, and the named merchants show the payoff is already measurable. The stores that map their catalog, sharpen product attributes, and monitor which agents are sending traffic will capture disproportionate AI-referred revenue during BFCM; the ones that wait for the data to "prove itself" will spend the season competing purely on price against a shrinking window of attention.

What Merchants Should Do Now

1. Audit your top 20 products for agent-readable completeness: full titles, specs, materials, sizes, use cases, and price, then confirm Shopify Catalog is enabled so structured data is exposed to AI channels.
2. Test AI visibility now: ask ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and other assistants to recommend gifts in your category and note whether you appear; fix the gaps in attributes and reviews before Black Friday.
3. Lean into the indie-brand and personalization angle — 71% of frequent AI users are more open to independent brands, so lead with the story, fit, and "considered" reasons you are the better pick, not just the cheapest.
4. Add an AI-referral segment in your analytics and a BFCM checkpoint: track sessions and conversions from agentic channels weekly so you can see whether Catalog and Agentic Storefronts changes are lifting revenue.

Original Source

Original source: Shopify News
Original publication: 2026-10-06
Coverage updated: 2026-10-12