Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) 2025 will be the first peak shopping event where consumer searches for products and deals on AI platforms will reach critical mass.

With nearly two-thirds of shoppers (64%) already using Gen AI tools in their daily lives – a rise of +13% year-on-year – success across BFCM and the wider Peak Trading period will hinge on visibility and discoverability across key AI platforms, including ChatGPT, Copilot and Google’s AI-powered Search.

Speaking at Ecommerce Expo, Botify‘s SEO Consultant, Stanley Dunthorne, outlined the strategic steps brands will need to optimise ahead of Peak Trading saying: “AI is not just technology, it’s now the gateway that will act either as either a barrier or a bridge to your customers.”

AI search: a shift in metrics, visibility & customer journeys

As consumers increasingly visit AI platforms to surface information, AI bot traffic has soared, significantly increasing impressions while website traffic and clicks have declined as a result.

Botify’s ecommerce and retail data from its AI search optimisation platform shows that average impressions per vertical saw a +22% increase year-on-year, rising from 9% in 2024 to 31% in 2025. Meanwhile, clicks fell from 6% growth to -1% during the same time, a fall of -7 percentage points.

Viewed out of context or through a traditional organic search lens, and you might think those figures spell bad news. However, now the full customer journey can occur within AI platforms, this opens up new opportunities for brands able to tap it, Dunthorne explained.

Product discovery, comparison, validation – and even purchases – are increasingly taking place within the walled gardens of AI. Just this week, for instance, ChatGPT launched new Instant Checkout functionality to allow U.S. Etsy shoppers to buy direct without leaving its platform.

But while shopping journeys may be taking place off-site, Botify’s early studies suggest that consumers using AI are better qualified, more informed and more likely to convert. And this means AI-platform shoppers could, in fact, be more valuable than those paths to purchase that don’t touch AI.

Focus on live retrieval to win Gen AI Black Friday

Much of this opportunity relies on visibility. Dunthorne explained how currently web crawler bots find brand URLs and store them in indexes, or “a library of websites,” as he described it. These search indexes act as a “source of truth” for both traditional search, i.e. Google or Bing, and AI platforms.

And that means if a brand’s webpages don’t exist in these indexes, they become invisible to bots, AI agents and consumers, no matter if they search traditionally or on AI platforms.

The Large Language Models (LLMs) informing AI search are trained over a specific period of time with a definitive start and end date, augmenting this information continuously deploying live retrieval to capture updated information. In the context of BFCM this includes vital information such as when products are on sale, stock availability levels or stock-out information. Retailers will need to enable live retrieval, allowing bots to access their sites, to ensure the information being served by AI platforms is both accurate and up-to-date.

Enriching and retro-fitting content for AI by adding structured and rich product data enhances intent signalling and makes it easier for bots to better understand these key details. Additionally, because some AI bots struggle to see content that’s heavily reliant on JavaScript, such as reviews or product details, by delivering fully rendered pages straight to AI bots can also help brands boost visibility. 

Redefine measurement with visibility as the new KPI

Brands must “stop using yesterday’s metrics for today’s world,” Dunthorne said, adding that “the interface has changed, so the metrics must too.”

Where traditional search ranking KPIs focused on clicks, impressions and conversions, AI visibility metrics need to encompass brand mentions, citations, share of visibility and contribution to revenue impact.

As retailers prepare for BFCM 2025, the brands that succeed won’t be the ones chasing traffic, they’ll be the ones optimising for AI visibility and discovery. This means adapting strategies to ensure content is accessible, accurate and enriched for AI platforms to ensure that products are seen – and discovered – by increasingly AI-first shoppers.