Holiday shopping sometimes resembles a contact sport, and when it’s done online it can turn into a seemingly never-ending maze that goes in circles. We all want to show our appreciation, love, value of friendship, through gift-giving, but the task of finding the perfect gift can test our devotion. Now there’s hope in the form of AI.

This holiday season, AI could become the world’s most overworked, underpaid personal shopper.  The major players—Google, Walmart, Target, and a long list of retailers—are integrating AI into their online shopping sites to give customers a more enjoyable shopping experience.

Google is calling its holiday upgrade a kind of conversational shopping concierge. In an announcement this fall, the company said it has “unwrapped our biggest upgrade to shopping in AI Mode in Search,” promising to let users describe what they want “just as you’d say it to a friend.”

That means shoppers can skip the endless keywords and filters and ask things like, “I need cozy sweaters for happy hour in warm autumn colors” — and actually get sensible suggestions, complete with prices, reviews, inventory and shoppable photos. According to Google, the engine behind all this is its Shopping Graph, which now includes more than 50 billion product listings, with “2 billion of them updated every hour.”

When shoppers search for products “near me,” they can tap a button labeled “Let Google Call,” and the company’s Duplex technology will phone nearby stores, ask about availability, prices and promotions, and then send a summary via text or email. It’s the kind of thing holiday shoppers my find to be their favorite feature— an invisible assistant willing to sit on hold so you don’t have to.

Google has also begun testing automated checkout. If a shopper uses Google’s price-tracking tool and sets a budget, they can now authorize Google to buy the product for them — using Google Pay — the moment it dips into their preferred price range. The system is rolling out across select U.S. merchants including Wayfair, Chewy, Quince and certain Shopify retailers.

Walmart announced its own giftbag of AI-powered tools just as the holiday season began. The company said it was “rewriting the holiday playbook,” pairing steep Black Friday discounts with what Tracy Poulliot, Walmart U.S.’s senior vice president of shopping experiences, described as the power of AI and technology.

“The most wonderful time of the year should be joyful, and with the power of AI and technology, we’re making that possible,” she said. “Whether customers are holiday shopping in our stores or from the comfort of home, we’re giving them the tools to check off their lists quicker and easier than ever before. And they’re loving it — when they use the app while they shop in stores, they spend 25 percent more on average than on trips when they don’t use the app.”

Among the new Walmart tools are in-store savings features that surface every deal in one tap, enhanced navigation that shows customers where items are located in the store, and AI-generated audio summaries that summarize reviews. The company even added augmented reality “Dynamic Showrooms,” which let shoppers step into designed holiday scenes and swap out furniture, decorations and more before buying. Their AI assistant, Sparky, now plans entire parties — decorations, champagne, confetti and all — based on nothing more than a short description of the event.

Target is leaning into AI too. In a statement released in November, Target said it is “making shopping easier, smarter and more fun this season with new tech features,” including a conversational Gift Finder designed to deliver personalized suggestions based on details shoppers type about their recipients. The company’s List Scanner lets guests photograph handwritten wish lists and automatically add items to their Target carts, which feels like the natural evolution of the “if only my list could shop for itself” fantasy.

Once shoppers step into a store, Target’s app switches into Store Mode, guiding them aisle-by-aisle and even offering an in-store game called “Find Bullseye,” where customers hunt for the company’s mascot and pick up holiday stickers at checkout. It’s part practicality, part play — and very on-brand for a retailer that trades heavily on cheerful convenience.

Consumers, for their part, seem ready for an AI-powered holiday. A recent Epsilon Pulse report found that nearly a quarter of shoppers plan to use AI tools this season, with millennials and Gen Z driving the trend. Of those using AI, 72% said they want help finding gift ideas, and more than half plan to compare prices or get product recommendations this way. The majority of Gen Z shoppers using AI (93%) expect to use ChatGPT as part of their holiday shopping workflow. Additional surveys from Klaviyo and UserTesting confirm the trend that shoppers are tapping AI to compare prices, evaluate deals and even generate gift ideas.

According to Klaviyo, “AI is no longer a side tool, it’s now at the center of commerce. With ChatGPT turning into a storefront, consumers can discover a product, click ‘buy,’ and check out in a single chat. It’s one of many shifts redefining how people shop and how brands connect with consumers.”