In this episode of Retailgentic, Salesforce’s Director of Strategy and Consumer Insights Caila Schwartz joins Scot Wingo to break down Salesforce’s 2024 Holiday Forecast, and how AI agents like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini are transforming the path to purchase.

They cover:

• How 21% of global holiday spend will be influenced by AI
• Why discovery (not discounts) is this year’s theme
• Why Baby Boomers are finally using ChatGPT for shopping
• How Gen Z is bringing the mall back with AI in hand
• The return of “Discount Chicken” and the Tuesday-after-Cyber-Monday surprise

Timestamps:
00:00 – Welcome + Caila intro
01:00 – What Salesforce’s Consumer Insights team does
04:30 – Agentforce and AI momentum post-Dreamforce
07:00 – Holiday forecast: “Discovery” as the 2024 theme
08:00 – How Agentic tools are changing product search
09:45 – $263B in AI-influenced sales
12:00 – Gen Z, Baby Boomers, and agentic adoption
15:00 – Q3 data: growth, traffic, and product detail engagement
19:30 – LLM referrals vs social media conversions
22:00 – ChatGPT Checkout and embedded commerce
25:00 – AI in physical stores — 57% of shoppers use agents in-store
28:00 – Holiday sales forecast and discount trends
33:00 – The rise of “Discount Chicken”
38:00 – Loyalty consolidation and the price-sensitive consumer
42:00 – Gen Z’s love of in-store experiences
47:00 – The future of unified data and physical + digital retail
50:00 – Closing thoughts

👉 Connect with Manil: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caila-schwartz/
👉 Learn more about Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/

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