AI helps drive record $11.8 billion in Black Friday online spending

AI-powered shopping tools helped drive a surge in U.S. online spending on Black Friday, as shoppers bypassed crowded stores and turned to chatbots to compare prices and secure discounts amid concerns about tariff-driven price hikes.

U.S. shoppers spent a record $11.8 billion online, up 9.1% from 2024 on the year’s biggest shopping day, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracks 1 trillion visits that shoppers make to online retail websites.

The AI-driven traffic to U.S. retail sites soared 805% compared to last year, Adobe said, when artificial…