Consumers and pedestrians transfer by way of the Pitt Avenue Mall throughout a Black Friday sale on Nov. 28, 2025 in Sydney, Australia.
Lisa Maree Williams | Getty Photographs
The emergence of AI buying would not simply give shoppers entry to customized recommendation and hassle-free buying, it additionally brings with it an elevated danger of digital fraud.
This Black Friday, for the primary time, shoppers and retailers alike are being warned concerning the perils of so-called “agentic buying,” as shoppers flip to giant language fashions to seek for merchandise, examine choices, obtain customized suggestions, and even make purchases with out a lot human enter. These technological advances include their very own dangers.
“It undoubtedly makes my life simpler… however on the identical time, it additionally makes fraudsters’ life considerably simpler as nicely,” mentioned Michael Reitblat, CEO of Forter, an id intelligence firm that works on fraud prevention.
In keeping with Reitblat, there was a 200% enhance in agentic buying by shoppers over the previous six months. That has been accompanied by a virtually tenfold enhance in fraudsters utilizing AI. “Consider it as sending 1000’s of robots into completely different shops to masquerade nearly as good shoppers,” Reitblat informed CNBC’s “Squawk Field Europe.”
Whereas some retailers’ knee-jerk response has been to easily ban AI purchases, that could possibly be a defective technique as an increasing number of shoppers use AI for buying and that’s driving good high quality site visitors, Reitblat mentioned.
A report by McKinsey & Firm and The Enterprise of Style discovered that amongst trend executives, AI and digital instruments had been seen as the only largest alternative for the trade in 2026. To make sure merchandise are seen and favored by AI fashions, manufacturers should rethink advertising and marketing and e-commerce methods, the report famous, including that semantically wealthy information and API-accessible content material might be essential to success.
“You’ll want to use AI to battle AI,” Reitblat mentioned. “You’ll want to just be sure you’re leveraging higher information than fraudsters could have, and it’s worthwhile to correctly consider: how do you authenticate the shoppers?”
Shaky client confidence
Worth-conscious shoppers is one other issue retailers need to cope with this 12 months as heightened commerce tensions and worries a few slowing financial system affect shoppers’ spending habits.
Client confidence has been shaky heading into the buying season. In Europe, financial sentiment has remained stubbornly beneath its long-term common since mid-2022, in accordance with information by the European Fee. In the meantime within the U.S., client confidence hit its lowest level since April in November as issues about job safety mount.
Some specialists have prompt a break up between rich shoppers doing nicely and others which are chopping again on spending amid strain from increased costs, in what has been dubbed the “Okay-shaped financial system.”
“Client confidence has been bumpy, and subsequently the purchasers feeling like they’re getting real worth goes to be an enormous factor for this 12 months,” mentioned Curry‘s Chief Providers Officer Dean Kramer.
“We all know analysis is an enormous a part of how shoppers method Black Friday, ensuring they’re getting absolute worth.”
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