Push notifications grew modestly, up 6% on Black Friday and 16% on Cyber Monday, complementing email and SMS in driving revenue.

SMS played a crucial role, rising 104% year-over-year on Black Friday and 47% on Cyber Monday, underscoring SMS as a key channel for peak-season engagement.

Bloomreach positions its broader product suite—conversational shopping, email marketing, and engagement tools—as central to peak-season strategies and ongoing personalization for brands.

Mobile remained a primary channel for initiating conversations, with most interactions starting on mobile and peak messaging occurring on Black Friday evenings.

Bluecore’s 2025 Black Friday and Cyber Monday data show AI-assisted shopping via the alby agent driving decisions, with Black Friday driving high intent and Saturday inspiring the most product research and comparisons.

Bloomreach emphasizes multichannel personalization—meeting customers across email, ads, and conversations—to sustain holiday success and ongoing engagement.

Sports and hobbies category saw the largest AOV surge on Black Friday, rising 75.41% year over year, reflecting category-specific demand.

The analysis draws on a sizable data set—1 million alby conversations, 27 million e-commerce interactions, 1.95 billion shopper events, 3.7 million orders, and $531 million in sales across 144 brands during November 2025, using first-party cookies and conversations.

Bloomreach reports a dramatic surge in AI-driven shopping activity during the Black Friday period, with a 113% increase in AI shopping assistant messages on Black Friday and a 61% rise on Cyber Monday, signaling strong engagement with the conversational shopping platform.

Black Friday outpaced Cyber Monday in search and engagement, posting an 18% day-over-day rise in searches from Thanksgiving to Black Friday versus a 6% rise from November 30 to Cyber Monday.

Shoppers used AI to address high-stakes pre-purchase questions across categories, from furniture assembly and weight capacity to ski-skill matching and safety certifications like FAA approvals for car seats.

The dataset includes insights from 59 enterprise brands and 85 mid-market brands, derived from customer-alby conversations during the Black Friday to Cyber Monday window.

Customers predominantly asked product-focused questions to Bloomreach’s AI assistant, highlighting a need for in-chat guidance during gift shopping.

Many inquiries sought details about specific items, reinforcing the role of on-demand guidance in the gift-shopping experience.

Bluecore’s platform enables personalized, AI-driven marketing by aligning messages with each shopper’s interactions and live product catalogs to prompt timely purchases.

Bloomreach serves 1,400+ brands globally, spanning retail, financial services, hospitality, and gaming, including notable clients like American Eagle, Sonepar, and Pandora.

Saturday recorded the highest volume of questions (nearly 279,000), suggesting substantial research and comparison activity despite Black Friday’s sales lead.

BFCM weekend kept engagement high, with Black Friday and Saturday each generating around 2.4 million engagements, underscoring that the peak period extends beyond a single day.

Marketing channels remained pivotal, with nearly 600 million emails on Black Friday and 510 million on Cyber Monday, while push notifications and SMS contributed significant, but varying, revenue support.

Email remained dominant, with Bloomreach customers sending close to 600 million emails on Black Friday and 510 million on Cyber Monday.