Mind the Gap: Marketers, Agentic AI Awareness, and the Holiday Season

Holiday shoppers have more options than ever before, which can be both a blessing and a curse. They’re endlessly overwhelmed by deals, deadlines, and decision overload. Beginning this year, AI-powered agents can help the gift-buying process by serving as tireless concierges who scour the internet for the best offers, optimize for budget and delivery windows, and even secure limited-edition items. The big question remains: are both brands and consumers ready?

To understand how prepared both sides of the buying process are to embrace this new paradigm, HUMAN recently surveyed 103 senior brand and agency marketers alongside a nationally representative sample of more than 2,300 consumers. Beyond the data, three insights stand out as both warning signs and opportunities for brands willing to move early.

The Readiness–Eagerness Gap: An Invitation for Early Movers

We’ve seen before that when it comes to emerging technologies like AI, businesses tend to be more eager to use it than they are ready. Our research supports this trend, with a twist. We found that only 61% of marketers feel at least somewhat familiar with agentic AI, even as it seems that every day, another major retailer announces an integration into major LLMs enabling consumers to purchase directly from the AI interface.

Consumers’ eagerness to use AI in their shopping plans for 2025 is up dramatically: 64% of those surveyed planned to use it in their 2025 shopping, up from only 11% who reported doing so last year. And HUMAN’s own observations captured a whopping 6,900% increase in agentic traffic over the course of 2025. That includes increases of 144.70% from the November baseline during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping days.

This discrepancy creates a window for brands to differentiate themselves. Agents are less likely than humans to return to a brand that blocked their session. They are also far more likely to browse a competitor to complete an intended purchase. Those brands that build “agentic-ready” experiences today will capture the wave of eager early-adopter shoppers tomorrow, unlocking conversion, loyalty, and competitive advantages as a result.

“You Can’t Measure What You Can’t See”: Closing Analytics Blind Spots

If a good chunk of marketers are unfamiliar with agentic AI, it makes sense that fewer than half are confident that their technology stacks can distinguish human, bot, and agentic sessions. Ownership of agentic traffic monitoring also remains fragmented, with analytics and marketing science teams leading 38% of respondents’ efforts, digital performance and media operations covering 24%, and 19% reporting no clear owner.  

Brands and agencies can’t deliver robust consumer experiences without accurate and reliable analytics. Agents can be misclassified and blocked, preventing legitimate purchases from agents operating on behalf of real consumers, and precluding the ability to understand better how agents behave and how to optimize for those patterns.

Brands must establish clear ownership of agent monitoring, refine analytics to identify agentic traffic, and build plans and paths specifically for agentic traffic to keep those consumers from walking away.

From Generative Familiarity to Agentic Adoption: The Next Curve

A clear correlation exists between the frequency of generative AI use and the amount consumers will let agents spend on their behalf. 

In essence, the more frequently AI was used, the more money was “available.”  Weekly and daily users of AI would allow an agent to spend above $100, while less frequent users and non-users would limit AI-based spending to lower values. And most respondents limited what they’d allow an AI agent to purchase to smaller, cheaper options, like household items (60%) or toys and games (56%). Higher-ticket items, like travel, luxury items, and vehicles, all came in under 20%. 

As generative tools become ubiquitous, agentic commerce will follow—not leapfrog—requiring businesses to plan for a phased ramp rather than an overnight shift. This means if you’re not already testing use cases, you must prioritize a pilot in early 2026. 

After the Holidays—Agentic Commerce in 2026 and Beyond

The holidays serve as a prime motivator to begin shoring up agentic AI preparedness. As you make your marketing to-do lists (and check them twice), make sure to include these three priorities:

• Educate and evangelize agentic AI internally.
• Fortify analytics and fraud tools to spot and measure agentic traffic.
• Launch incremental agentic experiences tied to consumer comfort levels.