AI-powered shopping tools helped drive a surge in US 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.

US 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 US retail sites soared 805% compared to last year, Adobe said, when artificial intelligence tools such as Walmart's Sparky or Amazon's Rufus had not yet been launched.

"Consumers are using new tools to get to what they need faster," said Suzy Davidkhanian, an analyst at eMarketer. "Gift giving can be stressful, and LLMs (large la

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