Two surveys released on October 7, 2026 answer the question of how many U.S. holiday shoppers turn to AI with 34% and with 72%, and a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) building a holiday plan has to choose. Which number goes in the plan? Gartner (NYSE: IT) reported on October 7, 2026 that 34% of 1,004 U.S. consumers surveyed in August 2026 are very or extremely willing to use generative AI tools or chatbots for holiday gift recommendations. Optimove Insights, the research arm of marketing platform Optimove, reported on October 7, 2026 that 72% of 648 U.S. consumers surveyed in Spring 2026 consult AI tools for shopping ideas or gift recommendations regularly or occasionally. Shopware, Olyzon and FouAnalytics with fraud0 also issued releases on October 7, 2026, and each one hands a marketer a score, a threshold or a refund total that another party defined.
Gartner surveyed 1,004 U.S. consumers in August 2026 and found that established channels still carry the holiday: 77% of respondents plan to shop in stores and 75% plan to shop on Amazon. Gartner reported in the same August 2026 survey that consumers who use AI tools for holiday shopping inspiration consult an average of 4.48 sources, against 3.24 for consumers who do not use AI. An AI-assisted shopper in Gartner’s August 2026 data checks 38% more sources than a shopper without AI. A marketer who acts on that finding funds product information across AI tools, search, retailer sites, marketplaces and stores at once, which costs more than moving one line item from search to AI. Gartner’s October 7, 2026 release states no figure for the share of consumers who currently use AI for holiday shopping, so the 34% describes stated willingness.
Optimove Insights built its 72% from two answer options. In the Spring 2026 Optimove survey of 648 U.S. consumers, 49% said they regularly consult AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini for shopping ideas or gift recommendations and 23% said they do so occasionally. Optimove limited the Spring 2026 sample to adults with household incomes of $75,000 or more, a narrower population than the U.S. consumers Gartner sampled in August 2026. A marketer who sells to higher-income households can plan against Optimove’s 72%, and a marketer who sells to a broad base starts closer to Gartner’s 34%. Optimove’s report advises brands to publish clear, accurate product information on use cases, pricing, availability and promotions so that AI systems can surface the products, the practice Martechipedia files under generative engine optimization (GEO).
A worked example shows what the choice costs. The figures in this paragraph are hypothetical and come from no release. Suppose a home goods retailer sets aside $400,000 for holiday discovery work and funds AI discovery in proportion to shopper usage. At 72% the team moves $288,000. At 34% the team moves $136,000. The $152,000 difference traces to question wording, sample income and field date, three choices a research team made months before the budget meeting. The planner who writes those three choices beside the number can defend either allocation, and the planner who copies the headline cannot defend one.
Optimove also reported behavioral data from more than 5.5 million customers of e-commerce brands on October 7, 2026. Against the same brands’ average day from January through October 2025, Optimove measured new customers up 593% on Black Friday 2025 and 404% on Cyber Monday 2025, returning customers up 359% and 267%, and orders up 290% and 210%. A brand that acquires 100 new customers on an average day would acquire 693 on Black Friday at Optimove’s reported rate. Optimove’s baseline averages ten months that include January and February, and any peak retail day clears an average winter weekday by a wide margin. Ask for the comparison against Black Friday 2024 before you put the 593% in a forecast. Returning customers rose faster than orders on both days in Optimove’s 2025 data, 359% against 290% on Black Friday, which means many returning customers visited and placed no order. Optimove’s October 7, 2026 release does not state how many brands supplied the 5.5 million customers.
Shopware, the German commerce platform, issued a U.S. wire release on October 7, 2026 for the Agentic Commerce Maturity Index (ACMI), a free self-assessment that Shopware first described in Europe in late September 2026. A merchant answers 24 questions in about 25 minutes and receives a maturity score across Discovery, Transactions, Fulfillment and Operations, a comparison with other participants and recommended next steps. ACMI measures the condition Martechipedia calls agent readiness, and Shopware stated on October 7, 2026 that the index helps teams find gaps in product information, integrations, pricing logic, attribution and governance. The ACMI questionnaire asks whether AI agents can discover a merchant’s products through protocols such as UCP and MCP, the layer Martechipedia files under agentic commerce protocols. The merchant supplies every answer, so the score records what a team believes about its own store. A commerce platform wrote the test for commerce platforms. Use ACMI as a structured agenda for a cross-functional meeting, and pair it with an external scan of the storefront before the score reaches a board slide. Shopware stated on October 7, 2026 that merchants are testing ACMI in an early access phase, so ask how many merchants sit in the comparison group before you quote a relative position.
Olyzon, the Paris-based agentic orchestration platform for advertising, announced the full launch of its orchestration technology on October 7, 2026 during Advertising Week New York. Olyzon’s agents plan, activate and measure media budgets across demand-side platforms including Amazon DSP, DV360, The Trade Desk and Yahoo DSP, inventory partners including Universal Ads, Vibe, Spotify and PubMatic, and measurement partners including DoubleVerify, Xpln, Lucid and Innovid. Olyzon stated on October 7, 2026 that budget moves in flight inside caps and approval thresholds the buyer sets, with a full audit log. The buyer owns two definitions before launch: which partner’s signal counts as an outcome, and how large a budget move an agent makes without approval. A media lead who keeps the thresholds from the onboarding call has delegated the decision anyway. Martechipedia assigns threshold-setting of that kind to an AI Governance Board. Olyzon’s October 7, 2026 release includes statements from agency customers InterMedia Advertising and Method1 and contains no campaign performance figure.
FouAnalytics, the independent analytics platform for digital ads, websites and mobile apps, announced a deeper partnership with fraud0 on October 7, 2026 to bring fraud0’s AI agent for automated Google Ads refunds to large advertisers. An advertiser adds a JavaScript tag to its website and connects its Google Ads account, and the fraud0 agent monitors traffic and runs the refund workflow for invalid traffic, false clicks, out-of-compliance ads, billing errors and platform overcharges. The refund total is one more figure a third party computes on the advertiser’s behalf. Ask fraud0 what share of submitted claims Google paid and how fraud0 charges for recovered spend before you count a refund as budget.
Three decisions follow for marketing leaders as of October 7, 2026. First, pick the AI adoption figure that matches your customer base and record its question wording, sample and field date in the plan, using Gartner’s August 2026 survey of 1,004 U.S. consumers and Optimove’s Spring 2026 survey of 648 higher-income U.S. consumers as the two reference points. Second, fund product information across every discovery source together, because Gartner’s August 2026 data shows AI users consulting 4.48 sources. Third, write down who sets each threshold an agent acts on before the agent moves budget.
Read the methodology line before you quote a figure
Gartner, Optimove, Shopware, Olyzon, FouAnalytics and fraud0 each produced the figures and claims in their own October 7, 2026 releases, and no third party had audited any of them as of October 7, 2026. Gartner (NYSE: IT) sells research and advisory services, published the August 2026 holiday findings from a report available to Gartner clients, and stated no margin of error in the October 7, 2026 release. Optimove sells a marketing platform, restricted its Spring 2026 survey of 648 U.S. consumers to households with incomes of $75,000 or more, and drew its behavioral data on more than 5.5 million customers from its own clients. Optimove’s 593% and 404% new customer increases compare Black Friday 2025 and Cyber Monday 2025 with an average day from January through October 2025. Optimove first published the 72% AI usage figure from the same Spring 2026 survey in its Holiday Shopping Report 2026 on August 5, 2026. Shopware sells a commerce platform, and every ACMI score comes from a merchant’s own answers to 24 questions. Olyzon published no campaign performance figure on October 7, 2026. FouAnalytics and fraud0 describe the refund agent as a world first, a claim no third party had verified as of October 7, 2026.
Strategic priorities for marketing leaders
- Write the definition beside the number. Record question wording, sample and field date for every AI adoption figure in the holiday plan, starting with Gartner’s 34% and Optimove’s 72% from October 7, 2026.
- Match the sample to your customer. Compare your buyers’ household income and shopping frequency with the survey population before you adopt its figure.
- Ask for a like-for-like baseline. Request Black Friday 2025 against Black Friday 2024 from any vendor that reports a peak-day increase against an average day.
- Pair a self-assessment with an external scan. Run Shopware’s ACMI as a meeting agenda, then test the storefront with a tool that reads the site directly.
- Set agent thresholds in writing. Name who sets the budget cap and the approval threshold for each media agent before launch, and review the audit log weekly.
- Ask what share of refund claims paid out. Request the claim acceptance rate and fee structure before you count recovered ad spend.
Which number goes in the plan? Either figure works when the question wording, the sample and the field date travel with it. Write the definition next to every number before it reaches a budget slide.
Here’s The News for October 7, 2026
Gartner Finds 34% of U.S. Consumers Are Very or Extremely Willing to Use Generative AI for Holiday Gift Recommendations
Gartner (NYSE: IT), the business and technology insights company, reported on October 7, 2026 that 34% of U.S. consumers are very or extremely willing to use generative AI tools or chatbots for holiday gift recommendations. The Gartner survey of 1,004 U.S. consumers, conducted in August 2026, found that retailer websites, traditional internet searches and wishlists from friends and family remain the most common sources of holiday shopping inspiration, that 77% of consumers plan to shop in stores and that 75% plan to shop on Amazon. Gartner reported that consumers who use AI tools or chatbots for holiday shopping inspiration consult an average of 4.48 inspiration sources, compared with 3.24 among consumers who do not. Gartner Sr Principal Analyst Emily Weiss advised marketers to make products easy to discover and evaluate across AI tools, search, retailer websites, marketplaces and stores. Gartner published the full findings for clients in the report 2026 Holiday Advertising and Consumer Trends Marketing Must Address, and the October 7, 2026 release states no margin of error. Read the full press release (Published: October 7, 2026 | Source: Business Wire)
Optimove Insights Reports 72% of Surveyed Shoppers Consult AI for Gift Ideas and New Customers Rose 593% on Black Friday 2025
Optimove Insights, the research arm of marketing platform Optimove, released its Black Friday and Cyber Monday Report 2026 on October 7, 2026. The report combines a Spring 2026 survey of 648 U.S. consumers aged 18 and older with household incomes of $75,000 or more and behavioral data from more than 5.5 million customers of e-commerce brands. Optimove reported that 49% of surveyed consumers regularly consult AI tools for shopping ideas or gift recommendations, 23% do so occasionally and 12% are open to it. The Spring 2026 Optimove survey also found that 63% plan to wait for Black Friday or Cyber Monday to begin holiday shopping and that 47% plan to explore new brands while 53% expect to shop only with brands they bought from last year. Against the same brands’ average day from January through October 2025, Optimove measured new customers up 593% on Black Friday 2025 and 404% on Cyber Monday 2025, returning customers up 359% and 267%, and orders up 290% and 210%. Optimove sells a marketing platform, sourced the behavioral data from its own customers and did not state the number of brands in the data set. Read the full press release (Published: October 7, 2026 | Source: GlobeNewswire)
Shopware Issues the Agentic Commerce Maturity Index, a 24-Question Self-Assessment of Agent Readiness
Shopware, the German commerce platform, issued a wire release on October 7, 2026 for the Agentic Commerce Maturity Index (ACMI), a free self-assessment that measures a merchant’s readiness for agentic commerce. The assessment comprises 24 questions, takes about 25 minutes and evaluates four areas: Discovery, Transactions, Fulfillment and Operations. Merchants receive an immediate maturity score, a comparison with other participants and recommendations for next steps. Shopware stated on October 7, 2026 that merchants are testing ACMI in an early access phase to shape the public version and that AI engineers specializing in agentic commerce developed the index. Shopware Chief Agentic Officer Stefan Hamann stated that the index will become a mid-market benchmark as the Agentic Commerce Alliance grows. Each ACMI score reflects the merchant’s own answers, and Shopware’s press page carried the announcement in Europe in late September 2026 ahead of the October 7, 2026 wire release. Read the full press release (Published: October 7, 2026 | Source: PR Newswire)
Olyzon Launches Its Agentic Orchestration Platform for Advertising Across DSPs, Inventory and Measurement Partners
Olyzon, the Paris-based agentic orchestration platform for advertising, announced the full launch of its orchestration technology on October 7, 2026 during Advertising Week New York. Olyzon’s agents orchestrate media budgets from brief to execution to measurement, starting with connected TV and extending across YouTube, social, digital audio and digital out-of-home. Olyzon stated on October 7, 2026 that its agents are live across demand-side platforms including Amazon DSP, DV360, The Trade Desk and Yahoo DSP, inventory platforms including Universal Ads, Vibe, Spotify and PubMatic, workflow partner Swivel.ai, and measurement partners including DoubleVerify, Xpln, Lucid and Innovid. Budget moves in flight inside caps and approval thresholds the buyer controls, with a full audit log, and an email agent brings direct insertion orders into the same workflow. Olyzon described the product as an example of a Unified Media Platform. Olyzon’s October 7, 2026 release includes statements from InterMedia Advertising, Method1, Universal Ads, Vibe and DoubleVerify and reports no campaign performance figure. Read the full press release (Published: October 7, 2026 | Source: PR Newswire)
FouAnalytics and fraud0 Partner on an AI Agent That Automates Google Ads Refund Claims
FouAnalytics, the independent analytics platform for digital ads, websites and mobile apps, announced a deeper partnership with fraud0 on October 7, 2026 to bring fraud0’s AI agent for automated Google Ads refunds to large advertisers. FouAnalytics founder Dr. Augustine Fou stated that the partnership lets advertisers recover losses from invalid traffic, false clicks, out-of-compliance ads, billing errors and platform overcharges. An advertiser activates the agent by adding a JavaScript tag to its website and connecting its Google Ads account, and the agent then monitors traffic continuously and runs the refund workflow. FouAnalytics stated on October 7, 2026 that fraud0 also supports placement blocking, audience exclusions and continuous identification of recurring invalid traffic sources. FouAnalytics and fraud0 describe the agent as a world first, a claim no third party had verified as of October 7, 2026. Read the full press release (Published: October 7, 2026 | Source: PR Newswire)
Frequently asked questions
What marketing technology and AI news was announced on October 7, 2026?
Five wire releases on October 7, 2026 covered AI holiday shopping research, agentic commerce readiness and agentic advertising. Gartner (NYSE: IT) published a holiday survey of 1,004 U.S. consumers, Optimove Insights released its Black Friday and Cyber Monday Report 2026, Shopware issued the Agentic Commerce Maturity Index, Olyzon launched its agentic orchestration platform for advertising, and FouAnalytics announced a partnership with fraud0 on automated Google Ads refunds. All figures in the five releases come from the issuing companies and are unaudited.
What did Gartner’s 2026 holiday survey find about AI and gift shopping?
Gartner reported on October 7, 2026 that 34% of U.S. consumers are very or extremely willing to use generative AI tools or chatbots for holiday gift recommendations. The Gartner survey covered 1,004 U.S. consumers in August 2026 and found that 77% plan to shop in stores and 75% plan to shop on Amazon. Consumers who use AI for holiday shopping inspiration consult an average of 4.48 sources, compared with 3.24 for consumers who do not, according to the same August 2026 Gartner survey.
What did Optimove’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday Report 2026 find?
Optimove Insights reported on October 7, 2026 that 72% of 648 surveyed U.S. consumers consult AI tools for shopping ideas or gift recommendations, with 49% doing so regularly and 23% occasionally. Optimove fielded the survey in Spring 2026 among adults with household incomes of $75,000 or more. Optimove’s behavioral data from more than 5.5 million customers showed new customers up 593% on Black Friday 2025 and 404% on Cyber Monday 2025 against the same brands’ average day from January through October 2025.
Why do Gartner and Optimove report different figures for AI holiday shopping?
Gartner’s 34% and Optimove’s 72%, both released October 7, 2026, measure different behaviors in different samples. Gartner counted consumers who are very or extremely willing to use generative AI for gift recommendations among 1,004 U.S. consumers in August 2026. Optimove counted consumers who consult AI tools regularly or occasionally among 648 U.S. adults with household incomes of $75,000 or more in Spring 2026.
What is Shopware’s Agentic Commerce Maturity Index?
Shopware issued a wire release on October 7, 2026 for the Agentic Commerce Maturity Index (ACMI), a free self-assessment of 24 questions that takes about 25 minutes. ACMI scores a merchant across Discovery, Transactions, Fulfillment and Operations and returns a maturity score, a comparison with other participants and recommended next steps. Merchants are testing ACMI in an early access phase, and each score reflects the merchant’s own answers.
What should marketing leaders do with the October 7, 2026 AI shopping data?
Marketing leaders can record the question wording, sample and field date beside every AI adoption figure before it enters a holiday plan. The October 7, 2026 releases from Gartner and Optimove show a 38-point spread, 34% against 72%, that follows from those three choices. Gartner’s August 2026 finding that AI users consult 4.48 inspiration sources supports funding product information across AI tools, search, retailer sites, marketplaces and stores together.
