BusinessWire India 
New Delhi [India], October 26: Global AI-first cloud communications platform Infobip predicts more than 7.3 billion customer interactions across Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2026, as AI and conversational channels transform how consumers discover products, receive offers and access support. New Infobip research also reveals that 63% of consumers have used an AI assistant or chatbot while shopping during the past 12 months.
Black Friday is no longer a single shopping event. Infobip’s research shows that the shopping season now begins weeks earlier and continues through the entire customer journey. In APAC, 28% of respondents in the Philippines and 29% in India will have started holiday shopping by October or earlier, versus 24.5% globally. This extended shopping window is creating new pressure for retailers to engage customers earlier, with better timing, more relevant offers and frictionless support across the channels consumers already use.
AI is becoming a central part of that journey. Research shows that 83% of consumers in India have used an AI assistant or chatbot for shopping in the last 12 months, while 95% are open to virtual try-ons through messaging. 82% in India and 76% in the Philippines would let AI compare products for them, and 71% in the Philippines would use it to find personalized deals. However, the data also shows clear boundaries: consumers worldwide are more willing to let AI make recommendations than make decisions or handle complaints on their behalf.
The data suggests that email remains a dominant channel for deals and updates in the Philippines and globally, while SMS is used more often for updates than offers. This gives retailers an opportunity to build trust through transactional messages before expanding into promotional engagement. In India, email also leads, but WhatsApp is close behind: 70.5% of respondents chose it for deal alerts and 76.5% for order and shipping updates, well above the global averages. This underscores the growing importance of conversational and mobile channels for timely, personalized engagement.
Speed is becoming a baseline expectation. Infobip’s survey found that 75% of respondents in the Philippines, expect order confirmation within five minutes versus 85.1% globally, and 66% of Filipino consumers expect a support response within the same timeframe, compared with 47% worldwide. For retailers, this means AI and automation are no longer only tools for efficiency; they are becoming essential to meeting customer expectations during high-volume periods.
Harsha Solanki, VP & General Manager Asia at Infobip, said: “Black Friday and Cyber Monday are becoming longer, connected shopping journeys across Asia, not isolated sales days. What shoppers in India and the Philippines are telling us is that relevance matters as much as reach: they want useful offers earlier, AI that helps them compare and decide, and communication that continues smoothly after checkout. Brands therefore need to match each interaction to the shopper’s moment - email for discovery, SMS for timely updates, WhatsApp for conversational engagement and RCS for richer, more interactive experiences - while making it easy to move to human support when needed.”
Explore all Infobip’s predictions here: https://www.infobip.com/blog/shopping-season-survey
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