It turns out that a shocking number of Christmas shoppers are now turning to artificial intelligence for help with gift giving during the festive period.
There is now just one week to go until Christmas, which is usually the time when people begin to panic about what they’re buying for their loved ones this year.
And it looks like AI could be the future of gift giving as the technology is making a bigger impact on festive shopping than anyone ever predicted.
According to new research conducted by PSE Consulting, almost one in four adults in the UK intend to use AI tools to help them choose and buy gifts this year.
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The study found that nearly half of adults in the country are already using AI tools on a regular basis and almost one in four (22%) plan to rely on them for their Christmas shopping.
Chris Jones, who is the managing director at PSE Consulting, explained: “What’s remarkable is how quickly AI has moved from novelty to something shoppers rely upon, particularly during the festive period.
“AI is also massively increasing consumers’ ability to search for and identify genuine deals - with no sponsored listings, adverts or clickbait. What’s unusual, and refreshing, is that AI currently works for the consumer rather than the retailers, with shoppers even willing to pay for subscriptions to get better and faster advice during high-pressure periods such as Christmas.”
However, this shift doesn’t come without its concerns as Jones continued: “At the same time, there is a risk of what Cory Doctorow calls the ‘enshittification’ trap, where platforms begin by serving users but gradually prioritize business customers or shareholder profit over the consumer.
“AI shopping has huge potential to transform how we buy everything from trainers to travel, but it must avoid that path. If AI is going to reshape retail, it needs to keep consumer interests firmly at the centre - not become a highly sophisticated sales funnel dressed up as a helpful assistant.”
Regular users of AI assistants are using the tool to help them choose, compare, or purchase Christmas gifts and seasonal deals during the festive period.
And it looks like this method could be here to stay as analysts have predicted that AI-powered shopping could reshape global retail by the end of the decade, with automated ‘agentic’ tools expected to influence up to $1 trillion in US online spending by 2030 and several trillion dollars worldwide.