Research from Checkout.com indicates that this festive season will mark a key turning point for agentic AI adoption, as consumers increasingly turn to intelligent digital agents in order to “manage the stress, cost and complexity of peak-season shopping.” With almost half or 47% of consumers planning to use an AI agent for their Christmas shopping and a third saying they “planned to rely on agentic tools over Black Friday, this year’s festive season could be the first in which automated shopping becomes a mainstream behavior.”
The findings come from a survey conducted by Checkout.com “examining how UK and US consumers are using agentic AI today and how they expect these tools to evolve across the next 5 years.”
The data shows younger demographics are leading the shift: “72% of Millennials say they are comfortable allowing an AI agent to make purchases for them, compared with one in four of those aged 55 and over.”
Consumers are turning to AI agents primarily “to save money and make shopping easier during the busiest shopping season of the year.”
Among those who already use AI for “purchasing support, the top reasons include: always getting the best price (33%); avoiding overspending (30%); and saving time by not having to shop myself (27%).”
Gift-related shopping is “a major driver behind early adoption.”
A quarter of consumers already use AI for “product reviews or gift ideas, and almost half (49%) say they have used AI specifically to help choose a present for their partner.”
Family (38%), partners (35%), friends (34%) and children (28%) are the most common recipients “of AI-assisted gifts – and nearly one in five shoppers have used AI agents for colleagues or Secret Santa. ”
Again, younger shoppers are leading the trend when it comes “to gifting using AI: 70% of 25–34-year-olds have used AI to choose a gift for a partner, and more than four in ten have used AI to generate gift ideas, messages or even handwritten-style cards.”
Looking beyond Christmas, the research indicates “that routine and repeat purchases will be the first areas where agentic AI becomes embedded in everyday life in 2026.”
Currently, around 15% of consumers would already trust an AI agent “to handle their weekly food shop, rising to 21% of 25–34-year-olds, while 18% would hand over daily household items such as toiletries and cleaning products. ”
Almost half of consumers (47%) say they would use “an AI agent to take care of “boring” or repetitive purchases, a figure that climbs to more than two-thirds among shoppers aged 25–44.”
These early signals point to a shift in the year ahead “where AI begins to manage more of the high-frequency, price-sensitive tasks that dominate household spending, setting the stage for agentic commerce to become a practical, everyday utility in 2026.”
Rory O’Neill, CMO at Checkout.com, said that this Christmas could be one of the first calendar moments that they “see agentic AI becoming part of everyday shopping behavior, not just a novelty.”
People are using AI to take the pressure off “the emotional and financial load of gifting.”
When half of consumers are already comfortable “getting help from AI to choose presents for loved ones, the step towards using agents to shop on our behalf doesn’t seem like such a leap.”
Despite rising enthusiasm, consumers still want “reassurance before fully handing over their shopping to AI.”
The research shows that “42% worry about losing control over what an AI agent might buy, and 28% cite a lack of transparency in how decisions are made.”
That’s why Checkout.com is working with card networks and global tech brands to put the right guardrails in place, “prioritizing consumer trust as agentic commerce grows.”
As peak season approaches, Checkout.com’s Play by Play dashboard is also providing real-time visibility into payment performance “across Black Friday, Christmas and the January sales, right through to Valentines’ day.”