Anna Amarotti

Sale prices and brand offerings have always been under the microscope during Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM), but in 2026 consumers are talking about much more than just discounts. To understand how consumer expectations and conversations are changing, we used our Social Listening capability to analyze 5.67 million posts from August 2025 to July 2026 about the shopping event across social platforms, forums, blogs, product review sites and comment sections.

People are increasingly turning to AI models for practical advice, like how to spend less on everyday necessities like groceries. What we found is that the answers provided were unlikely to begin and end with a single store. Instead, AI responses combine retailer recommendations with advice about making lists, buying in bulk, choosing store brands, using digital coupons, earning cash back, shopping sales, and avoiding impulse purchases.

Contents When I was eight years old I thought the Casio Databank watch was just about the coolest thing I’d ever seen - a computer you could wear! If you’d told me back then that eventually wrist watches would pack enough processing horsepower to make every supercomputer of the 1980s look like an abacus, and everybody would be wearing one, my mind would have been blown.