What black friday 2025 teaches us about Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) for modern brands

Black Friday used to be a day of crowded websites, endless comparison tables, and dozens of open browser tabs. This year, something fundamental changed. People didn't search in the old way—they asked. They turned to AI assistants to pick the right product, make sense of overwhelming choices, and cut through the noise of traditional shopping experiences.

Consumers posed questions like "Tell me the best blender for smoothies," "Show me a dining table that fits a small apartment," "Find me an air purifier that helps with allergies," and "Recommend a safe toy under fifty dollars." They wanted answers, not lists. This shift represents the clearest sign yet that brands must prepare for Answer Engine Optimization (AEO).

The numbers tell the story: Adobe Analytics reported that AI-driven traffic to U.S. retail sites surged 805% year-over-year on Black Friday 2024, contributing to a record $11.8 billion in online spending—a 9.1% increase from the previous year.

Black Friday 2024 revealed that shoppers increasingly trust AI agents to compare products, analyze reviews, study features, and synthesize everything into actionable recommendations. According to Salesforce data, AI agents drove 17% of online orders during Cyber Week, contributing to $13.5 billion in sales, while globally influencing 20% of Cyber Week orders and driving $67 billion in total holiday sales.

Why many brands disappeared during black friday

Answer engines rely on clean, structured signals to make recommendations. Many brands had human-friendly descriptions but machine-unfriendly data architecture. While their marketing copy looked appealing to human visitors, AI systems couldn't parse, understand, or confidently recommend their products.

Research from Bloomreach shows that 61% of consumers have used AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini for shopping, and 54% report their search habits becoming more conversational over the past 12 months.

The brands that succeeded had clear product specifications, consistent information across channels, structured metadata, and reviews connected directly to product data. Those that relied solely on creative marketing language without structured foundations found themselves invisible to AI recommendation engines, even when their product quality was superior.

What black friday revealed about modern consumer intelligence

Consumers no longer want to do the comparative work themselves. They seek the confidence that comes from a trusted system performing analysis on their behalf. AI agents examined dozens of options, scanned thousands of reviews, and delivered synthesized insights in seconds.

Adobe Analytics found that shoppers who visited U.S. retail sites through AI chat services were 38% more likely to make a purchase than those from traditional traffic sources.

This fundamentally changed the buying journey from "search → scroll → compare → decide → buy" to "ask → AI compares → AI ranks → AI recommends → buy." The critical insight is that brands must become the answer that AI systems provide, not just hope to appear in search results.

Three major lessons black friday taught brands

Lesson one: Clarity wins

AI agents reward simple, structured, consistent information over creative marketing language. Human-friendly design alone is insufficient for AI visibility. Brands need machine-readable data architecture alongside compelling creative content.

Lesson two: Product truth must stay clean

Conflicting data across channels reduces AI confidence and lowers recommendation likelihood. Unified, accurate product information across all touchpoints improves visibility in AI-powered recommendations.

Lesson three: AEO is now a strategic layer

Brands must optimize not only for human users but also for the AI systems that increasingly mediate human decision-making. This requires a fundamental shift in content strategy and technical implementation.

A simple AEO readiness checklist for brands

• Organize product attributes in structured formats that AI can easily parse and understand
• Maintain consistent descriptions and specifications across every sales channel and platform
• Implement structured metadata and schema markup for enhanced AI comprehension
• Connect customer reviews and social proof directly to product data systems
• Monitor how AI assistants currently describe and recommend your products
• Track performance changes during high-traffic periods like holiday shopping seasons

The future: Black friday as only the beginning

AI-driven shopping will accelerate dramatically in 2025 and beyond. Gartner predicts that traditional search engine volume will drop 25% by 2026 due to increased reliance on AI chatbots and virtual agents. Consumers will depend more heavily on answer engines that filter information noise and save decision-making time.

Brands that want to succeed in this transformed landscape must build comprehensive AEO strategies immediately. Content and product data need to be answer-ready long before the next holiday season arrives. The companies that invest in AI-friendly data architecture and structured content approaches will capture disproportionate market share as traditional search traffic migrates to AI platforms.

Conclusion

Black Friday 2024 demonstrated an irreversible truth about modern commerce: visibility belongs to brands that AI systems can understand, trust, and confidently recommend. The 805% surge in AI-driven traffic wasn't a temporary spike—it was the beginning of a permanent shift in how consumers discover and purchase products.

The brands that recognize this transformation and adapt their strategies accordingly will thrive in the AI-mediated economy. Those that continue to optimize solely for traditional search and human-only experiences will find themselves increasingly invisible as AI becomes the primary interface between consumers and commerce.

The future of brand visibility lies not in gaming search algorithms, but in becoming the clear, trustworthy answer that AI systems confidently provide to consumers seeking solutions. Black Friday 2024 showed us this future—now it's time to build for it.

References

1. Adobe Analytics. (November 2024). "AI helps drive record $11.8 billion in Black Friday online spending." Reuters.
2. Adobe Analytics. (December 2024). "Adobe: Cyber Monday Hits Record $14.25 Billion in Online Spending." Adobe Newsroom.
3. Salesforce. (December 2024). "How AI is quietly becoming the holiday shopper's secret weapon." Business Insider.
4. Bloomreach. (March 2025). "Bloomreach Announces Findings from Conversational AI Shopping Study." Bloomreach Press Release.
5. Gartner. (February 2024). "Gartner Predicts Search Engine Volume Will Drop 25% by 2026, Due to AI Chatbots and Other Virtual Agents." Gartner Press Release.
6. CMO Alliance. (2024). "How LLMs are changing product discovery."
7. Inc.com. (November 2024). "Black Friday Broke Records. The Real Story Is How AI Changed the Way We Shop."
8. Marketing Dive. (November 2024). "Winners and losers of Black Friday 2025."
9. Search Engine Land. (September 2024). "Schema and AI Overviews: Does structured data improve visibility?"
10. BrightEdge. (May 2024). "Structured Data in the AI Search Era."