Black Friday 2025 rewrote the record books with $11.8 billion in online sales, marking a 9.1% increase from last year. But beneath the headline-grabbing numbers lies a more nuanced story about AI’s role in retail that every industry executive needs to understand.
In the latest Retail Fast Five podcast, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Infios, and Quorso, hosts Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga dissect what the Black Friday numbers really tell us about AI shopping adoption, why retailers may want to pump the brakes on agentic commerce, and where the smartest investments are happening right now.
The Black Friday Numbers Tell Two Stories
According to Adobe Analytics, mobile accounted for 55% of purchases, while Buy Now Pay Later captured almost $800 million in spending. But the stat that has everyone talking? AI-driven traffic to U.S. retail sites soared 805% compared to last year.
Impressive, right? Chris isn’t convinced. Drawing parallels to BNPL’s early growth trajectory, he notes that CFPB data showed BNPL loan originations rose 970% from 2019 to 2021. By comparison, AI shopping’s 800% growth in what’s essentially year two seems underwhelming.
“Which makes me start to wonder if the industry needs to start slowing its roll on shopping via these platforms,” Chris explains. His recommendation? Take a more thoughtful and pragmatic approach, viewing AI platforms as search amplifiers first before rushing to connect business systems and apps to them.
Anne counters with a critical perspective: AI agents were involved in a growing number of searches, and most of these searches don’t even have checkout enabled yet. Once consumers have transparent price comparisons and price tracking at their fingertips, she predicts the numbers will skyrocket.
ChatGPT’s Shopping Research: Overrated?
ChatGPT’s new shopping research feature promises to do the heavy lifting for consumers, building thoughtful buying guides instead of forcing shoppers to sift through dozens of sites. Users can simply describe what they need. For example, “Find the quietest cordless stick vacuum for a small apartment” and get curated recommendations.
Anne is bullish, particularly on Gemini’s potential given its constant intelligence about users. “We’ve never had this much visibility as consumers to price, optionality, availability,” she notes. But Chris remains pragmatic about the feature’s actual impact. How many product searches are truly this research-intensive? His theory: not many, which explains Amazon’s continued dominance in first product searches.
His advice to retailers? Don’t rush to enable these platforms as marketplace engines. Focus on making your own sites generative-ready first, because traffic still has to land somewhere following research-based searches.
Walmart’s Sparky Ads: The Smart Money Play
When the Wall Street Journal reported that Walmart is testing ads in Sparky, its AI shopping assistant, Chris couldn’t have been more supportive. “I don’t think I could be more pro on anything based on what we have already discussed on this podcast,” he declares.
The new “Sponsored Prompt” ad format uses Sparky conversations for brand engagement and personalized product recommendations. Users click on prompts, Sparky responds, and a click-to-buy ad appears below the response.
Chris’s reasoning is straightforward: Generative AI searches already convert higher, advertisers will love the concept, and it’s incremental margin for Walmart’s ad business that’s already growing at nearly 100% per year. Convert existing site traffic at better rates, capture more ad dollars, then watch the traffic flow from GPT-like platforms before deciding how deeply to integrate with them.
Anne adds that with Amazon’s chatbot users converting 60% more, adding offers on top of AI recommendations creates a powerful combination of increased conversion and ad revenue.
Smart Glasses: Fashion First or Tech Flex?
A new McKinsey and Business of Fashion report predicts smart glasses are ready for their breakthrough year in 2026, with wearables growing 8.3% annually since 2022. Ray-Ban Meta glasses were already the top-selling product in 60% of Ray-Ban’s EMEA stores by Q3 2024.
But Chris, who owns the Meta glasses, isn’t buying the hype. “Nah, novelty,” he says bluntly. They’re awkward, you’re filming people, and you need a very specific use case. Unlike watches with biometric benefits, smart glasses struggle to improve on the smartphone experience from a utility standpoint.
Anne takes a different approach, focusing on the strategic implications. Most people will choose fashion first, then function. If you can add “smart glasses” to regular glasses at Warby Parker like you can blue light or progressive lenses, that’s where the long-term advantage lies. For fashion retailers, she recommends supporting both the wearable market and current customers with low-lift additions like accessories and engraving.
Amazon’s 30-Minute Delivery: Defensive Move?
Amazon’s new “Amazon Now” service offers 30-minute delivery in Seattle and Philadelphia, with Prime members paying $3.99 per order compared to $13.99 for non-Prime customers. But both hosts see problems with the strategy.
Chris views it as more defensive than offensive. Despite the Whole Foods acquisition, Amazon’s core grocery share has remained stuck at 4% since the acquisition. If competitors like Walmart can offer similar service white-label through Instacart or DoorDash, the competitive advantage evaporates.
Anne points to the pricing problem: “It’s still SO expensive compared to other offerings.” After two quick delivery orders per month, customers have already paid for a full month of DoorDash with zero delivery fees. The pricing strategy may not generate accurate demand data for Amazon to make informed scaling decisions.
The Takeaway: Thoughtful Beats Fast
The overarching theme from this Fast Five episode is clear: The retail industry needs to slow down and think strategically about AI investments rather than chasing every shiny new technology.
Focus on optimizing your own generative AI shopping experiences first. Create better conversion paths on your existing sites. Build incrementally profitable ad businesses around AI assistants like Walmart is doing. And watch how consumer behavior evolves before making expensive bets on unproven delivery models or rushing to integrate with every new AI shopping platform.
As Chris puts it, retailers need to decide which of Pandora’s boxes they’re opening and in what order. The winners won’t be the first movers. They’ll be the thoughtful operators who build sustainable, profitable AI strategies that actually serve customers.
Listen now on your favorite podcast platform or watch the full episode on YouTube at youtube.com/omnitalkretail. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Retail Daily Minute for your daily dose of curated retail headlines every morning!
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Amazon Music
Be careful out there,
– Chris, Anne, Producer Ella and the Omni Talk team
P.S. Be sure to check out all our other podcasts from the past week here, too: https://omnitalk.blog/category/podcast/
P.P.S. Also be sure to check out our podcast rankings on Feedspot
Music by hooksounds.com
#blackfriday #retailai #agenticcommerce #chatgpt #walmart #retailtech #omnitalk #smartretail #ecommerce #retailpodcast
Omni Talk® is the retail blog for retailers, written by retailers. Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga founded Omni Talk® in 2017 and have quickly turned it into one of the fastest growing blogs in retail.