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This article first appeared in our sister publication Shop Eat Surf Outdoor<\/em><\/p>\n Following years of fluctuating consumer confidence and flat ecommerce traffic, retailers braced for a modest performance in holiday 2025. Yet the data tells a different story: a record-breaking season defined by a massive surge in online activity and the emergence of a new, highly effective sales driver.<\/p>\n According to\u00a0Salesforce\u2019s post-holiday analysis \u2014 drawing on data from over 1.5 billion<\/strong> global consumers \u2014 global online spending hit $1.3 trillion<\/strong> between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, 2025 marking a 7%<\/strong> bump year-over-year. While North America saw a healthy 5%<\/strong> increase, Europe emerged as the surprising bright spot, delivering 12%<\/strong> year-over-year growth.<\/p>\n However, the headline isn\u2019t just the revenue volume \u2014 it is the new technology helping to power it. AI influenced $262 billion of that global online spend<\/strong>, said Salesforce Director of Consumer Insights Caila Schwartz and Gordon Evans, CMO of Agentforce Commerce, during a presentation at the NRF Big Show earlier this month.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s guided shopping, agentic agents, shopper agents, agentic customer service, AI-fueled product recommendations and agentic search,\u201d Schwartz said.<\/p>\n Agentic AI is an advanced form of\u00a0artificial intelligence\u00a0focused on autonomous reasoning, decision-making and action. Agentic AI systems can set goals, plan and sometimes even execute tasks with minimal human intervention.<\/p>\n For the past several years, ecommerce traffic has slowed, so going into the 2025 holiday season, industry forecasts predicted those levels to remain flat. \u201cWe were not anticipating any movement in traffic,\u201d Schwartz said. \u201cWe just kind of assumed we\u2019d hit peak traffic.\u201d<\/p>\n This assumption proved incorrect.<\/p>\n Toward the end of the holiday season, traffic surged by over 20%<\/strong> across all regions. \u201cWhat we believe drove that were these new channels, particularly AI-powered search,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The most significant finding wasn\u2019t the volume of traffic referring to retail sites from these AI channels \u2014 though that did see triple-digit growth \u2014 but the quality of that traffic.<\/p>\n Data indicates that visitors referred by AI search engines:<\/p>\n Schwartz said this signals the rise of a \u201chighly motivated buyer.\u201d Unlike a user passively scrolling through Instagram<\/strong> who might click an ad on impulse, a user engaging with an LLM (large-language model like ChatGPT<\/strong> or Google Gemini<\/strong>) is asking deep, specific questions. By the time they click through to a retailer\u2019s site, they have already performed their due diligence. <\/p>\n They are not browsing; they are ready to transact, \u201cso even though they\u2019re getting a lot of information through these conversations, these chats, they\u2019re still staying engaged with the brand when they come on site, which is really important,\u201d Schwartz said.<\/p>\n While third-party AI search drove traffic, brand-owned agents \u2014 AI interfaces hosted directly on retail sites \u2014 helped close the sale in many cases.<\/p>\n A prime example cited by Salesforce was \u201cOlive,\u201d the AI agent for Williams Sonoma<\/strong>. Far from a simple customer service bot, Olive functions as a \u201csous chef,\u201d assisting customers with meal planning, Thanksgiving preparation, and even dietary restrictions like gluten-free options. This new class of agent acts more like a knowledgeable store associate than the customer service chatbot of old.<\/strong><\/p>\n Overall, approximately 20%<\/strong> of retailers launched their own shopper agents prior to the holiday rush, using the season as a \u201cpressure cooker\u201d to test new innovations, Schwartz said.<\/p>\n The gamble paid off. Brands that deployed shopper agents (6.2%) saw 59% higher sales growth compared to those that did not (3.9%)<\/strong>, according to Salesforce data.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll see what happens in 2026, but this data is very encouraging,\u201d Schwartz said.<\/p>\n Historically, customer service has been viewed as a cost center, particularly during the high-volume holiday period. However, the 2025 season demonstrated that agentic AI service is becoming a critical part of the customer journey and a driver of loyalty, according to the Salesforce data.<\/p>\n Between November and December, there was a 66%<\/strong> increase in the rate of agentic conversations compared to the prior two<\/strong> months. Also notable, the rate of autonomous actions taken by these agents increased by 142%<\/strong>.<\/p>\n These agents were not merely routing tickets to humans; they were solving problems independently. From processing returns to updating shipping information, AI agents handled complex workflows without human intervention.<\/p>\n This speed has a direct impact on brand perception. Pandora<\/strong>, the jewelry retailer, utilized agents to interact with shoppers in a way that mimicked their high-touch in-store experience. The result was a 60%<\/strong> improvement in case deflection (enabling customers to self-solve issues rather than having to call customer service) and a 10%<\/strong> increase in Net Promoter Score (NPS), according to Salesforce. By resolving issues instantly and accurately, autonomous agents are turning potentially negative service interactions into positive brand experiences.<\/strong><\/p>\n If 2025 was the year of \u201cagentic efficiency,\u201d 2026 will be the year of \u201ctransforming the shopper experience,\u201d Schwartz said. The roadmap for the coming year suggests that AI will move out of the bottom-right corner of the screen and become integrated into the fabric of the ecommerce interface.<\/strong><\/p>\n Future agents will possess context across multiple datasets, Salesforce said. Currently, an agent might know a customer\u2019s shipping status but not their style preferences. The next generation of agents will unify customer service history, order history, real-time inventory and stylist availability.<\/p>\n This means a customer could ask, \u201cWhere is my order?\u201d and follow up immediately with, \u201cI need to book a styling appointment,\u201d without the agent losing the thread of the conversation.<\/p>\n Retailers are beginning to experiment with placing agents in specific high-friction areas of the website.<\/p>\n The Salesforce team was encouraged by the positive impact of new AI technology on both traffic and conversion during the holiday season, \u201cand the\u00a0reason why\u00a0we find it encouraging is because the trends that we see take place and take shape during this period typically set the tone for the next year,\u201d Schwartz said. \u201cAnd we are seeing that these technologies\u00a0are having\u00a0a significant impact on growth and performance.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nTraffic and Conversion Rates Jump<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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The Evolution of Brand-Owned Agents \u2014 Meet \u201cOlive\u201d at Williams Sonoma<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.retailtouchpoints.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/HolidayShopping_Olive.png\")
Customer Service Morphs into a Sales Driver<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The 2026 Roadmap: Transforming the Shopper Experience<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The Next Generation of Agents<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Breaking the \u201cChat Bubble\u201d Paradigm<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Looking Ahead<\/strong><\/h4>\n