Narvar’s 2026 Holiday Shopping Report, published Aug. 24, puts a number on the mismatch retailers have spent the summer avoiding: 65% of U.S. consumers plan to use AI for at least one part of their holiday shopping, while only 8% of retailers describe themselves as “very confident” using AI to improve the shopping experience. The 57-point gap is the report’s headline, and it isn’t an adoption curve. It’s an asymmetry.
The survey, covering 100 retail decision-makers and 1,348 U.S. consumers, breaks the consumer side into concrete jobs: 43% intend to use AI for gift discovery, 33% for comparing products and summarizing reviews, 29% for budgeting, and 15% for post-checkout management. Another 78% said they’d use AI-powered tools if the experience felt more personalized. Meanwhile, just 14% of retailers expect greater use of AI shopping assistants to be the season’s biggest behavioral change.
“Consumers aren’t waiting for retailers to catch up. They’ve already brought AI into how they discover gifts, compare prices and decide what to buy,” said Anisa Kumar, chief executive of Narvar.
The strategic risk is one of citability. Sudip Mazumder, senior vice president at Publicis Sapient, warned in Retail TouchPoints that retailers risk becoming “non-citable in AI-driven shopping journeys” when product data, pricing logic and availability aren’t structured for answer engines to summarize. That threat compounds against separate analysis of AI-referred traffic quality showing AI-routed visitors convert at higher rates than standard search.
Fulfillment expectations aren’t softening in parallel. Sourcing Journal reports 76% of shoppers would accept slower delivery for free shipping, but nearly 30% still expect same-day or next-day as the free-shipping standard. On returns, 56% have delayed a purchase over refund uncertainty, and 46% avoid retailers that charge for returns.
Black Friday is roughly 13 weeks out. Product feeds, return terms, and delivery windows written this week are what the answer engines will read.