Holiday Season Rakes in Record $1.29T for Retailers, Salesforce Data Shows

Salesforce unveiled its 2025 holiday shopping findings (Nov. 1 – Dec 31), reporting record-breaking online sales of $1.29 trillion globally and $294 billion in the United States, with strong influence from AI and agents. Amid higher average selling prices, year-over-year (YOY) sales growth hit 7% globally and 4% in the U.S., proving consumer buying remained strong from the start to finish of holiday shopping.

Shoppers showed remarkable resilience throughout the holiday season, even driving a 12% YOY global increase in sales (9% in the U.S.) in the last two weeks of December, outpacing growth in the first half of the season. All the while, AI and agents powered a massive portion of the holidays, driving 20% of all retail sales and fueling $262 billion in revenue through personalized recommendations and deeper customer engagement. 

This year marked a turning point for the next wave of AI-powered search as the share of global and U.S. traffic from third-party AI search channels like ChatGPT and Perplexity doubled compared to last year. While these channels are still growing, they deliver an exceptionally high-intent shopper. In fact, shoppers referred to retailer websites from AI-powered search channels converted nine times more often than those coming through social media referrals.

Retailers’ own branded agents also contributed to sales growth – while boosting their teams’ efficiency. Companies that deployed their own AI agents, like Salesforce customers Pandora, SharkNinja, and Funko, saw a 59% higher growth rate — averaging a 6.2% YoY sales increase versus 3.9%. Shoppers embraced this technology more than ever, using retailers’ AI and agents for customer service 126% more during the holiday rush than in the two months prior.

As the season peaked, AI agents became key to always-on customer service. December saw a 66% jump in the number of agentic AI-powered service conversations over November, while interactions during the week of Christmas and Boxing Day grew 12% YoY. Beyond answering their questions, these agents also took direct action on behalf of customers, handling 142% more tasks than they had in the prior two months. These tasks include updating delivery addresses and initiating returns, which are manual, resource-intensive tasks for human reps.