With $1.25T in Holiday Sales Up for Grabs, LLMs Emerge as New Frontier for Search

New Salesforce data is forecasting a robust holiday season for global retail - but retailers who haven't adopted an AI-first mindset may miss out.

The numbers, which come from 1.5 billion global shoppers' data using Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, and Agentforce, show that November and December digital sales are expected to reach an unprecedented $1.25 trillion, marking a 4% year-over-year (YoY) increase.

While cooling interest rates are increasing consumer spending power, the way consumers are shopping is changing at a fundamental level. Salesforce estimates that a significant portion of the growth this upcoming holiday season is attributed to the rise in AI and agent-referred traffic. AI and agents are projected to drive 21% of all holiday orders globally, accounting for $263 billion in sales.

AI and agents are projected to drive 21% of all holiday orders globally, accounting for $263 billion in sales.

This marks a notable increase from the previous year, highlighting how quickly consumers are integrating AI assistants like ChatGPT and Gemini into their shopping journeys. In fact, traffic from AI assistants has grown rapidly in 2025, with online traffic volumes growing 119% YoY in the first half of the year. Conversion rates from these channels were over 700% higher than social media traffic in the first half of this year and 200% higher than other traffic sources like traditional search and direct, demonstrating their effectiveness.

Trends driving holiday retail

Our forecast also points to a growing consumer preference for thriftiness and sustainability in the face of trade uncertainty. A remarkable $64 billion of holiday sales will come from the resale market, driven by consumer sentiment around potential tariff volatility. The trend isn't limited to personal use; 46% of shoppers plan to give a previously owned item as a gift, with saving money as being the top reported reason for consumers leaning into resale. Saving money is also the reason why 77% of today's consumers report that they'll be waiting until Cyber Week to make their major purchases.

While digital is a strong driver of consumer holiday behavior, the physical store remains a critical sales channel for holiday shoppers. This is especially true for the youngest generation, where 3 in 4 Gen Z holiday shoppers expect to shop in store, especially on key days like Black Friday. Despite being a digitally native generation, for every $1 a Gen Z shopper spends online, they're projected to spend $3 in a brick-and-mortar store. This emphasizes the importance for retailers to create a cohesive brand experience across all channels, capturing a new generation of consumers both on and offline.

Despite the positive sales outlook, retailers are also expected to be cautious with promotions. The forecast anticipates 2% fewer orders placed with a promotional code, likely in response to rising supply chain costs. This strategic pullback on discounts, combined with the rise of AI-driven sales and the burgeoning resale market, paints a complex picture of a retail landscape rapidly being reshaped by technology, evolving consumer habits, and rapidly changing macroeconomic conditions.

With a potentially blockbuster revenue year ahead, including U.S. online sales projected to increase 2.1% from last year, retailers must be ready to capture their piece of the pie.

Our data shows that retailers can tap AI to capture revenue share, specifically across the buying journey and customer support.

Consumer-facing large language models (LLMs) and generative answer engines have transitioned from the meme makers of 2022 to hyperpersonalization tools that are transforming the way people find new brands and products across the shopping landscape. Our data shows that 17% of consumers have used an AI assistant or LLM in the last year for product searches. More importantly, trust in these AI recommendations has surged, with 86% of users now trusting them, up from 46% in May.

Our data shows that 17% of consumers have used an AI assistant or LLM in the last year for product searches.

The ability to optimize a site's product listings, promotions, and messaging for emerging generative AI search experiences will be a crucial strategy for brands. Across the industry, this shift is being described in many ways - generative engine optimization (GEO), answer engine optimization (AEO), AI optimization (AIO), and even LLM search optimization (LLMO). But no matter the label, the opportunity is clear: Generative search is rapidly emerging as a new digital search channel for discovery, expanding the landscape that SEO has long defined.

Beyond product discovery, consumers' interest in AI agents that can act on their behalf is also rising. Our data indicates that 48% of shoppers who already use AI for shopping are open to having an AI agent make a purchase for them. Digital retailers that integrate these AI agents to guide shoppers from discovery all the way through checkout will likely see higher conversion rates.

AI agents are also making customer service more efficient. For the first time in a decade, we're expecting a decrease in customer service case interactions ‌ - ‌ a clear sign that agents can handle many of the routine inquiries faster and free up human agents to focus on more complex cases. We predict the use of AI and agents for customer service will grow by 39% over the holiday season, leading to an overall 2.5% decrease in customer interactions. This is a testament to the power of agents in understanding and delivering on the needs of customers more effectively than ever before.

Go deeper:

2025 Salesforce Holiday Insights and Predictions Methodology

Salesforce analyzed aggregated data powered by Agentforce, Commerce Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Service Cloud to produce holiday insights from the activity of more than 1.5 billion global shoppers across more than 89 countries, with a focus on 18 key markets: Asia-Pacific (excluding Australia, Japan, and New Zealand), Australia, Belgium, Canada, Eastern Europe, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latin America (LAM), the Middle East and Africa (MEA), the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Nordics, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States. This battery of benchmarks provides a deep look into the last nine quarters and the current state of digital commerce. Several factors are applied to extrapolate macroeconomic figures for the broader retail industry. These and other results are not indicative of Salesforce performance.

The prediction data that we present are from proprietary Salesforce research. The calculations we use blend together first-party and third-party data, as well as several market assumptions.