Editorial
The Gist
- Generative AI becomes the new holiday helper. More than half of consumers plan to use chat-based LLMs for gift discovery, recommendations, and virtual try-ons — reshaping how shoppers make decisions.
- Emotion still wins the season. Holiday buying remains deeply psychological, and AI-driven interactions amplify brand trust when they trigger nostalgia, joy, and the “warm glow” effect of gift-giving.
- Findability determines whether your products show up. Brands must optimize product data, speed, structure, and platform alignment (Shopify, Etsy, etc.) to surface in agentic LLM shopping flows.
Are you one of “those” holiday people? You know the types – setting up Christmas trees in November, holiday lights outside the house, cookie scented candles line the hallways?
Listen, I’m not trying to pass judgement, I AM one of those people. There’s just something about the holiday season that puts me in a good mood. I love retail, I love shopping, and I love buying gifts for other people; it fills my holiday spirit cup to the brim.
But I must tell you, this holiday season will look a bit different than the years prior – and as you likely have guessed, thanks to LLM based chat solutions like ChatGPT and others. Recently, Adobe announced in a survey that 52% of consumers plan to leverage generative AI solutions for holiday shopping in 2025. From curated shopping lists to product recommendations to trying on a product virtually, generative AI-driven interfaces have now become the shiny new toy that consumers will be grabbing off the shelf on droves this season.
Table of Contents
- Why Holiday Emotion Still Shapes Customer Behavior
- Defeat Analysis Paralysis for Good
- Brand Discovery Elevates Dopamine and Loyalty
- Enable the Emotions
Why Holiday Emotion Still Shapes Customer Behavior
Now, I don’t believe that this revelation is groundbreaking, as I’m sure you and your brand are fully exploring ways to weave AI into the experience you’re building for consumers. However, I am more interested in discussing the psychological implications this has for your brand and your consumers.
Traditionally, holiday advertisements have been extremely emotional, nostalgic and centered around love and family with storytelling being the magnet that connects brand to customer on a personal level, or as I’ve previously discussed the idea of anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism is the idea of characterizing human like emotions to non-human entities, like talking to our pets; they can’t talk back. But we project our emotions onto them, and "feel" their emotions back.
Why is this important? How does selling your products at a 40% higher price sound? Or, creating holiday campaigns that go viral on TikTok and Instagram? Or, gaining a customer for life that will provide you generational revenue because of the messaging you created? You would sign up for all that right?
I know I sure would.
All of this is extremely achievable as brands can curate experiences that evoke similar emotions and results, specifically through the onset and increase of chat based, conversational AI commerce opportunities this holiday season.
Here are three ways to build customers for life that convert and bring customer loyalty this holiday season through AI based solutions.
Defeat Analysis Paralysis for Good
Consumers (humans) have always struggled with product choice. There’s just too many darn products out there, and when you’re shopping for someone, we typically project our own needs of acceptance onto them through the gift that we are looking for. “I hope they like it” or often worse “What if they hate it?"This causes analysis paralysis, or the overstimulation of too many product choices where a consumer often gives up and becomes frustrated. That of course was until chat based LLM’s entered the room.
Now, consumers can have conversations with agentic buddy’s, fully explaining the situation, the person, their likes and wants. These chat-based solutions then scour the internet to build products and "answers" that the consumer likely will find helpful to their query and hopefully, suggesting the right type of products for each situation.
Related Article: OpenAI's ChatGPT Instant Checkout: The Dawn of Conversational Commerce CX
Brand Discovery Elevates Dopamine and Loyalty
Have you ever gotten a gift for someone, watched their face as the unwrapped it and witness the pure joy or excitement? Of course you have. There’s nothing better than the perfect gift; it feels amazing, and there’s a reason why: it’s backed by science. Psychology calls this the "warm glow effect," or simply put, the happiness in doing something for someone else out of generosity or love.
The warm glow effect is quite important for brands to pay attention to. When we do something good for others, dopamine levels increase which leads to happiness around the interaction or experience. Guess what else is tied to that experience and interaction? That’s right: the product the consumer gave as a gift.
Anthropomorphism now re-enters the chat.
By your product being the vehicle for happiness in this equation, the consumer that purchased it has now created an unconscious, human-like relationship with your brand. This relationship can now be fostered and nurtured for future purchases, customer loyalty and customer trust.
There’s nothing more powerful in the world of buyer behavior and branding. If you can create emotional connections with your customers and nurture those connections to loyalty, you’ll have customers for life and revenues to match.
Related Article: Zeta Global Survey Finds 83% of Holiday Buyers Will Let Algorithms Choose Their Gifts This Year
Enable the Emotions
Okay, I get it. I can hear it now: “This all sounds great, Justin, but how do I make sure my products show up in this chat-based LLMs?”
Great question and one that’s a bit of a moving target, but here is what I can tell you.
Each chat-based LLM has certain parameters and checkpoints it leverages as part of its algorithm to return results to a search query, just like how Google operates in similar way.
Enhanced product descriptions, searchable site content, ample product images, multiple relevancy backing articles ... all these factors are still important of course. But there’s one big area that these chat-based LLMs are focused on that could make or break your rankings within these chat-based LLM search results:
Time.
That’s right, time. How long does it take these agentic LLM solutions to find answers? What authoritative sources are being leveraged? How long does it take the agentic solution once it hits your site to find answers?
All of these are questions that need to be addressed as part of your overall findability strategy. Taking it a step further, some solutions like ChatGPT have partnered with Esty and Shopify, so you must ask yourself, “How important is it to align with these platforms?” I would venture a guess that it can’t hurt — and over time, more partnerships will come into play that likely will affect relevancy rankings.
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To enable the emotions described above, you must be at the table, and you won’t have the opportunity if your product data is unstructured and not ready for prime time. This should be a top focus for your brand not just for the holiday season, but for the long haul.
Remember, the holidays are all about emotions and connection. Creating media and experiences that connect deeply with customers will always yield more short term and long-term uplift than a price discount, always.
As Buddy the Elf once said, “I just like to smile. Smiling's my favorite." This holiday season, focus on smiles, not sales, provide delight, not discounts, and above all, be where your customers are: your customers' holiday cheer may depend on it.
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