Holiday shopping 2026

Shoppers no longer want AI simply to recommend gifts. They are ready for agents to understand the recipient, choose the right gift, and decide where to buy it and how much to spend on it on their behalf. Our 20th annual Holiday Shopping Survey signals how far consumers are ready to delegate, and what that means for retailers now, near and next.

Consumers around the world continue to face significant financial pressure as the 2026 season approaches. US household incomes remain roughly 5% below pre-pandemic trend, while prices sit 15% above where they would have been without the inflation shocks from 2020.¹ Yet shoppers are determined to make their holiday season count. Our survey reveals over 50% of shoppers have plans to start shopping before October.² In fact, almost 20% of shoppers started holiday shopping before August. Their enthusiasm was reflected in the increased same-store sales in August 2026.³

What’s notably new is the extent to which shoppers are willing to give AI free rein to choose has evolved considerably. Interestingly, two gifting use cases they most want agents to handle are personalized gifts and purchases for hard-to-buy-for friends and family. The goal is the most meaningful or curated option, not simply the cheapest.

That willingness to delegate shopping tasks to AI is already tangible. If they had a personal agent, shoppers said, they would be willing to let it spend $102 on holiday gifts without their approval. Among active gen AI users, that figure rises to $149, a near 50% increase and a meaningfully higher vote of confidence in agents.⁴

The season is also a preview of the times to come. One in two active gen AI users already trust a personal AI agent more than themselves to buy gifts on their behalf. These agents do not yet exist at scale in mainstream retail. Next year, they could. And the retailers that have built for that moment will be the ones shoppers find.

Recalibration, not retreat

Shoppers’ guards might be up, but their wallets remain open. At $737, the average planned holiday spend this year is up 12% from last year. The rise in budget, however, conceals a less encouraging reality. Fifty-three percent of shoppers cite rising costs as the key driver of their growing holiday spend this year.

As economic caution grows, the cost of getting a purchase wrong rises. That’s why gifting has become more difficult (Figure 2). No wonder, 21% say gift-buying has become harder than five years ago while 26% say meaningful gifts have become harder to find. The result is a growing mismatch between what givers intend and what recipients actually want.

From AI tool to agentic layer

AI's role in holiday shopping has moved from experiment to expectation. Two in five shoppers said they will use gen AI for holiday shopping this season. One in two expect it to influence 50% or more of their holiday spend. They will use it for deal-finding (39%), comparing options (31%) and identifying the best retailer (30%). Shoppers also expect AI to drive them to the right stores to find the deals and products. Retailers and brands will need to act now to be ready for the future of shopping which will forever include AI in the mix.

But the journey does not stop at pre-purchase. Shoppers are increasingly open to AI assistance at the point of purchase and beyond, from completing a reservation to managing returns (Figure 3).

Those numbers take on real commercial weight when set against the fact that shoppers would allow an agent to spend approximately $102 without asking for approval. A triple-digit autonomous purchase commitment, made before the technology has fully arrived, is the clearest signal yet of where shopper expectations are headed.

The ideal agent and what it must do

Shoppers want an agent that understands the recipient, the budget and the relationship, not just the search query. Three in 10 holiday shoppers in the US already trust a personal AI agent more than themselves for decision-making.

That trust is not distributed evenly. Three in five US shoppers prefer retailer or brand-specific AI tools over publicly available platforms. Nearly three-quarters want agents to buy only from preferred or familiar brands and retailers. Brand loyalty still sets the guardrails.

But agentic shopping is making those guardrails contestable. Once a shopper permits their agent to switch for a better fit, price, relevance, availability and convenience, it can override habitual preference far faster than any promotional campaign.

As AI-recommended channels close the gap with retailers, advantage will belong to those that earn a place in the agent's consideration set. Those that do not will be routed around. To remain the endpoint where transactions complete, retailers’ offerings must be as legible to agents as they are to shoppers: accurate product data, a clear value proposition and a fulfilment promise an agent can verify.

The furthest expression of that agent authority is basket splitting. Three in five US shoppers would allow an AI agent to split their basket across multiple retailers in at least one product category. They are most open to splitting in categories such as apparel, toys and games, gift cards, food and beverages and beauty, which form the core of US holiday spend.

The store earns its trip

Not long ago, the physical store was being written off due to e-commerce growth, declining footfall and digital-first consumer behavior. The 2026 holiday data tells a more nuanced story. AI is driving the evolution of stores, reshaping them from a point of transaction into a destination that complements and extends the digital experience. Twenty-one percent of US shoppers say AI has made their store trips more intentional this season.

What makes this commercially important for retailers is who is showing up. Active gen AI users, Luxury Indulgers and Gen Z (the cohorts most immersed in digital) still direct a significant share of their holiday spend to physical stores.

The stores making the most of these intentional visits are those freeing frontline staff from manual, low-value work such as inventory checks, task administration and product searches. At the same time, they are redirecting their capacity toward the moments that matter: gifting advice, product reassurance and helping shoppers navigate the hardest decisions on their list.

Retailers that equip their frontline with real-time intelligence will find that the intentional store visit becomes the most commercially productive moment of the season. Analytics embedded across the store journey, covering replenishment, service prioritization and operational performance, ensure the right people and right products are in the right place when peak holiday demand arrives.

Three priorities for retailers this season

Next season, the agent shops?

The 2026 holiday season will be remembered as the one where shoppers got ahead of the technology. They have decided how they want to shop, what they can hand over and how much trust they wish to extend—to agents that, for most shoppers, can’t yet deliver. The demand has arrived before the supply.

The technology, however, continues to mature at speed. What retailers build now will determine whether they are equipped for what’s next.

_{^{The authors would like to thank Laura Bishop, Nadia Malik, Megan Kelley, Jaclyn Levine, Jennifer Ducarre, Michael Malinoski, Priya Verma, Melania Sulak, Donovan Griggs and Samarth Srivastava for their contributions.}}

Research Methodology

^{_{Accenture’s 20th Annual Holiday Shopping Survey provides comprehensive insights into evolving consumer purchasing behaviors during the 2026 holiday season. Conducted online, the survey gathered responses from over 16,000 shoppers across ten countries, including 4,048 shoppers in the US. Shoppers aged 18–80 were surveyed between August 13 and September 1. The survey explored consumers’ shopping intentions, budgets, timing of purchases, and use of generative AI and AI agents in their holiday shopping journeys. For the US sample, the maximum margin of error is approximately +/-1.6% at the 95% confidence level. We also ran simulations to generate synthetic data that replicated the design, sample, and structure of the Holiday Shopper Survey across the 10 countries. That synthetic data was used solely to validate and contextualize findings from the survey.}}

Sources

¹ _{Accenture's Macro Foresight analysis}

² _{All data points mentioned in the article are from our 20th Annual Holiday Shopping Survey, unless otherwise mentioned}

³ _{US Census Bureau's Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services (MARTS)}

⁴ _{Users engaging with the technology at least once a week}

⁵ _{Accenture, Talk to my AI agent, June 3, 2026}