Holiday 2026 consumer data: how shoppers plan to spend, search, and use AI this season

Holiday 2026 is shaping up as a season of steady budgets, sharper price sensitivity, and a shopping journey that now includes AI at almost every stage before checkout.

Cordial surveyed U.S. consumers about how they plan to approach this holiday season: what they expect to spend, when they will start, where they will look for deals, and how much of the process they are willing to hand to an AI assistant. The findings show a shopper who is careful with money, spread out across a longer calendar, and increasingly comfortable letting AI narrow the field before a human makes the call.

This page is the full data set behind that research. Every chart below is available to reference, cite, or share.

The numbers at a glance

• 43% of shoppers expect to spend about the same as last year, and only 35% expect to spend more.
• 55% say discounts and promotions matter more this year than last.
• Free shipping influences where 61% of consumers decide to buy, ahead of every other incentive tested.
• 26% plan to start shopping in early November, making it the single most common starting point.
• 42% are at least somewhat likely to use AI tools during their holiday shopping.
• 34% are comfortable letting an AI agent complete purchases for them, including 13% who would skip the review step.
• 53% say a longer promotional window makes them more likely to engage with a brand’s messages.

Value sets the terms this holiday season

Holiday budgets are not collapsing, but they are not expanding either. The largest group of shoppers, 43%, plans to spend about the same as last year. Only 11% expect to spend significantly more.

Generation is the sharpest dividing line in the data. Gen Z is the most expansive group, with 48% planning to spend more, while 16% of Boomers say the same. Boomers hold steady instead: 58% expect their spending to look like last year’s.

Careful budgets translate directly into promotion sensitivity. More than half of shoppers, 55%, say price and promotions carry more weight this year than last, and 26% say they matter much more. Millennials are the most promotion-driven group in the study at 61%.

What actually moves a purchase from one retailer to another is still practical value. Free shipping leads at 61%, followed by a larger discount at 45%. Personalized recommendations sit lower overall at 16%, but they carry real weight with younger shoppers: 25% of Gen Z name tailored recommendations as an influence, compared with 5% of Boomers. Gen Z is also the generation most drawn to bundles and added value at 26%.

That gap matters for anyone building a holiday offer strategy. Shipping and discount economics get shoppers in the door across every age group, and relevance is what increasingly separates brands for the shoppers with the longest buying future ahead of them.

The season keeps stretching, and shoppers are fine with it

Black Friday is no longer the starting gun. Early November is now the most common kickoff at 26%, and 36% of shoppers say they will have started before November even arrives. Black Friday weekend accounts for 19% of shoppers, and last-minute buying holds at just 6%.

The longer calendar is not something shoppers tolerate. For many, it is an invitation. A majority, 53%, say holiday promotions that start in October or early November make them more likely to engage with a brand’s messages, and only 8% say a longer window makes them less likely. Millennials respond most strongly at 65%.

The caveat is that a longer season means more messages competing for the same attention. Consumers are giving brands a wider window to earn a purchase, not a wider window to send undifferentiated blasts.

Where shoppers actually go to find deals

Retailer websites remain the anchor of holiday research at 53%, and they lead across every generation. Social media follows at 39% overall, with a generational split that is impossible to miss: 56% of Gen Z and 51% of Millennials research holiday deals on social, compared with 12% of Boomers.

Owned channels hold their ground. Retailer emails reach 30% of shoppers, apps reach 32%, and SMS reaches 13% overall but 21% of Gen Z and 18% of Millennials. Personal AI agents such as ChatGPT and Perplexity are already a research channel for 12% of shoppers, and 17% of Millennials, in their first real holiday season as a discovery surface.

AI has moved into the middle of the journey

More than 4 in 10 shoppers, 42%, say they are at least somewhat likely to use AI tools during their holiday shopping this year. Millennials lead at 54%, followed by Gen Z at 50%. Boomers remain the holdout at 19%, with 47% saying they are very unlikely to use AI at all.

Adoption concentrates in the evaluation stages. Comparing prices and finding deals tops the list at 43%, followed by comparing products or brands at 38% and finding gift ideas at 34%. Handing the purchase itself to AI sits at the bottom at 6%.

Read that shape carefully. Shoppers are using AI to build and narrow the consideration set, which means the questions brands need to answer are the ones an assistant asks on a shopper’s behalf: what this product costs, how it compares, who it is for, and whether it is in stock.

Discovery through AI also translates into demand. When an AI tool surfaces a product or brand a shopper had not considered, 39% say they are at least somewhat likely to buy it, and another 39% land in the neutral middle. Only 22% rule it out. Among Millennials, 52% say they would consider the purchase.

For challenger brands and for products that lose visibility in crowded category pages, that neutral 39% is the opportunity worth designing for.

Agentic buying is closer than the headlines suggest

Comfort with an AI agent completing purchases automatically reaches 34% of shoppers, including 13% who say they would trust it without reviewing the order. Another 20% sit in the neutral group, open to the idea and wanting to understand it better.

Younger shoppers are well ahead of the average. Comfort reaches 49% among Millennials and 44% among Gen Z, against 8% of Boomers. The generational spread here is the widest of any question in the study.

Most of that comfort comes with a boundary attached. The largest comfortable segment, 21% of all shoppers, limits agentic purchasing to low-cost or routine gifts. Autonomy is being extended selectively, starting with the purchases that carry the least risk.

What this means for brands

Lead with the value shoppers named. Free shipping and discount depth still determine where the purchase happens. Personalization decides which of the competing offers gets read, especially for Gen Z and Millennials.

Plan for a season, not a weekend. With 36% of shoppers starting before November and only 19% anchored to Black Friday weekend, a single peak-week push leaves most of the demand curve uncovered.

Earn the longer window. More than half of shoppers welcome earlier promotions, which raises rather than lowers the bar on relevance across October, November, and December.

Be legible to AI assistants. Shoppers are using AI most heavily to compare prices, products, and brands. Product data, availability, and offer clarity are now inputs to the recommendation, not just the product page.

Treat agentic commerce as a near-term design question. With 49% of Millennials comfortable handing purchases to an agent, and most of them starting with low-risk items, the practical work is deciding which purchases a brand is prepared to support that way.

Methodology

Cordial surveyed 1,000 U.S. consumers about their holiday shopping plans for the 2026 season. Percentages are rounded and may not total exactly 100%. Multi-select questions are labeled in the relevant tables and total more than 100%. Net figures shown in the tables are the sum of their component answers.