Infobip expects more than 7.3 billion customer interactions to pass through its platform across Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2026, as AI tools and conversational channels take on a larger role in retail engagement.
The company’s research, which surveyed consumers across its global markets, found that 63.2 per cent had used an AI assistant or chatbot for shopping in the past 12 months, with 21.9 per cent doing so frequently.
“Black Friday is no longer a single day or even a single week. It has become an extended conversation between consumers and brands, beginning with discovery and continuing through purchase, delivery and support. AI gives retailers the opportunity to make those conversations faster, more relevant and more personal. The winners will not be the brands that send the most messages, but those that understand when, where and how each customer wants to engage,” Goran Juršić, Chief Growth Officer at Infobip said in a statement.
Among those willing to use AI while shopping, 73.4 per cent said they would use it to compare products and 67.8 per cent to surface deals matching their preferences. The data also draws a line: consumers are broadly comfortable with AI informing decisions, but less so with AI making decisions or handling complaints on their behalf.
The research also points to a structural shift in retail timing. Nearly six in ten respondents said they would have started holiday shopping by early November, with only 19 per cent waiting until Black Friday week. That earlier start puts pressure on retailers to engage customers before the traditional peak, with more precise targeting and better-timed offers.
On channel preferences, email remains the dominant format for deals and updates globally, but SMS is chosen more often for transactional updates than promotional offers – a gap Infobip reads as an opportunity for retailers to build trust through order and delivery communications before moving into marketing.
Speed expectations are also rising. The survey found that 85% of consumers expect an order confirmation within five minutes and 47% expect a support response in the same window.
