Christmas decorations in October? Check.

Black Friday deals that last all week long? Check.

Record-breaking retail sales? Check. 

But in other ways, this year’s holiday shopping season looks and feels quite different from years past, with AI-driven commerce growing fast and new tools and safeguards in place to keep cyber criminals in check.

Despite economic uncertainty and higher prices, U.S. retail sales excluding autos were up 4.1% on Black Friday and 3.3% on Cyber Monday, according to preliminary insights from Mastercard SpendingPulse, which measures in-store and online retail sales for all payment types, and is not adjusted for inflation. 

Let’s take a look at the three trends powering holiday spending this year.

Sure, Cyber Monday means tons of e-commerce deals for the taking, and online sales were up 7.4% year over year, according to SpendingPulse. But even Black Friday, traditionally a full-contact sport, saw a significant shift online. E-commerce retail sales, excluding autos, jumped a whopping 10.4% compared to 1.7% for in-store sales. This growth underscores a long-term behavioral shift: Shoppers increasingly prioritize convenience and control when they buy, from price comparisons to personalized offers and flexible delivery options.

But the albeit modest growth in-store sales shows there’s still plenty of life in brick and mortar, and the new global Mastercard Shopper Snapshot survey of more than 4,000 consumers shows that 90% of consumers shop in stores during the holidays, with Gen Z, the first digitally native generation, at the front of the line. Retailers are responding by blending physical and digital touchpoints, offering services like curbside pickup for online orders to meet these evolving expectations. 

Who’s making a list and checking it twice? AI. The Shopper Snapshot also revealed that 42% of consumers are already using AI tools to help with gift buying, and nearly half of Gen Z and Millennials would happily hand off their holiday shopping to AI agents. Of course, these agents can deliver hyper-personalized recommendations (“I need a gift for my crafty aunt who loves needlework and the color yellow but is allergic to wool and it can’t cost more than $25”) but now they can do so much more: compare prices, track inventory in real time, summarize reviews, apply rewards and deliver tailored offers, and even complete the transaction for you.

New protocols developed by Mastercard in this fast-moving space are expected to make it easier for retailers to use agentic commerce and to ensure consumer intent and order confirmation, reducing disputes, increasing trust and accelerating adoption. 

As online sales soar, so do opportunities for fraud — and bargain-focused shoppers are, unfortunately, making it easier for cyber criminals. Mastercard research shows that nearly half of surveyed shoppers say they’d ignore security red flags for a great deal or a can’t-find-it-anywhere gift. That means prices that are too good to be true, poor spelling or grammar on the website, or requests for unnecessary personal information. Pro tip: No one should need your Social Security number to buy a Labubu.

And while fraudsters are using AI to find and lure victims faster than ever and at greater scale, organizations are using AI to fight back, with tools that are capable of analyzing more than a million data points in real time to deliver higher rates of fraud detection than ever before, and identifying suspicious patterns across global networks to prevent large-scale attacks. The acceleration of tokenization — the security technology that encrypts your card number so it’s never shared when you tap in store or make payments online or via apps — and the rise of biometric payments at in-store checkout is also creates extra layers of protection.

With smarter and more trusted tech on both sides of checkout — online, in store or in app — holiday shoppers are unwrapping the gifts that can't be bought: less stress, more time and greater piece of mind.