If you haven't checked, there's a good chance it is. This Black Friday, most Australian shoppers plan to ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's AI search for help finding gifts and deals, and those assistants answer with a short list of brands. The brands on that list get the click, and the shopper often arrives ready to buy. You can't change your reputation in the three weeks before 27 November. You can find out where you stand, fix the gaps that lose you the sale, and start on the rest in January.
Black Friday shoppers are asking AI first
YouGov's Black Friday report for Australia, published in October, found 60% of likely Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers plan to use AI to help them through the sales, up from 49% for last year's big sales events. Shopify's 2026 Holiday Retail Report puts it at 62% of Australians expecting to use AI for at least one holiday shopping task, from finding deals to discovering products.
YouGov also found 45% are comfortable using AI to find the best price, while only 10% would let it complete a purchase without asking first. For now, AI does the shortlisting and people do the buying. By the time a shopper reaches a store, the assistant has already narrowed the field.
The US numbers show where this is heading. Adobe forecasts that traffic from AI assistants to US retail sites will rise 95% year on year on Black Friday. In September, AI-referred visitors converted 90% better than visitors from other channels and spent 83% more per visit. Shoppers who arrive from an AI answer have often made up their mind.
Start by checking whether you're on the list
Check your ranking before you change anything. Found, our free AI visibility ranking, asks ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews 150 buying questions per industry every week and records which brands they name. The Australian lists cover 22 industries, including most of the big gift categories: fragrance, homewares, toys, luggage, footwear, beauty, and wine and spirits.
Three things to look at:
- Your visibility score. This is the share of answers that name you, and zero is common. In the latest Australian Outdoor & Adventure list, 13 of 41 tracked brands weren't named once across 900 AI answers.
- Who sits above you. In gift categories, one brand often takes a big lead. In Australian fragrance, Goldfield & Banks is named in 34.7% of answers, more than twice the next brand. That's who an assistant suggests when someone asks for a perfume gift.
- Which platform you're missing on. ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google often name different brands. A gap on one platform points to a different fix than a gap on all three.
If your brand isn't tracked yet, you can submit it from the same page.
Gift and deal questions are a different kind of question
Most AI visibility advice is about the everyday question: "what's the best brand of X?" Black Friday adds two more.
The first is the gift question. "What should I buy my dad who's into cycling, under $150?" "Gift ideas for a new mum that aren't another candle." The assistant has to match a product to a person and a budget, so it leans on whatever tells it who a product suits and what it costs.
The second is the deal question. "Is this brand's Black Friday sale worth it?" "Where's the cheapest place to buy this week?" Manhattan Associates surveyed 500 Australians in October and found comparing products, brands or retailers (36%) and finding the best deal (35%) were the two top ways people expect to use AI over the coming months. And 85% said they'd switch retailers if AI found the same product cheaper elsewhere.
Both questions open a door for smaller brands. Shopify found that among Australians who almost always use AI when shopping, 80% say they're choosing independent or niche brands more often, compared with 40% of people who don't use AI to shop. And 15% of Australians have already found a brand through AI that they hadn't heard of before.
The door can also close. Over the US Black Friday weekend last year, Apptopia estimated that Amazon and Walmart together took about 69% of ChatGPT's referrals to retail apps, up from 43% the year before. When an assistant has nothing specific to say about you, it falls back on the marketplaces that sell everything.
What you can fix before 27 November
Three weeks is enough for the things you control directly. Start with the ones that lose you a sale at the moment a shopper compares.
Make your sale prices match everywhere
Shoppers check what AI tells them. Manhattan Associates found 78% of Australians would check an AI-recommended deal against the retailer's website or another source before buying, and 52% said price was the first thing they'd double-check. If your Black Friday price says one thing on your site, another in your Google Shopping feed and a third on a marketplace, the shopper sees a brand they can't trust, and the assistant may quote the wrong one. Before the sale starts, check that your sale prices and end dates are the same everywhere your products are listed.
Put delivery cut-offs, returns and stock in plain words
Gift buyers ask practical questions. Will it arrive before Christmas? Can they swap it if it doesn't fit? Adobe found the content AI reads best is content that explains, like FAQs, buying guides and return policies. Promotional, navigation-heavy pages give it little to work with. The average US retail homepage scored 63% on Adobe's measure of how much of a page AI can understand and cite, and general merchandise homepages scored just 40%.
Write your Christmas delivery cut-offs, returns window and gift exchange policy as text on your product pages and FAQ page. A banner image that says "Order by 18 Dec" means nothing to an assistant.
Stock matters too. When two retailers sell the same product at the same price, Manhattan Associates found nearby stock (39%) was the top thing Australians want AI to weigh, ahead of free delivery and faster shipping. Make sure sold-out products show as sold out, and that store stock is visible if you have stores.
Give your gift pages words
Most gift guides on Shopify stores are a grid of product tiles with a heading. A shopper can browse that. An assistant can't tell who it's for. Add a short paragraph to each gift collection that says who the products suit, what they cost and why they make a good gift. "Gifts for runners under $100" with three sentences of real description gives an assistant something to match when someone asks what to get their sister who runs.
Tidy the products you're promoting
You don't need to rewrite your catalogue. Pick the 20 products you're pushing hardest this sale and read each description as if you were an assistant answering a gift question. If it doesn't say what the product is made of, who it's for and what sizes it comes in, add it. Our post on why ChatGPT recommends your competitor covers what assistants look for in product data and reviews in more detail.
Ask recent customers for reviews now
Reviews written in early November will still be recent when shoppers start asking. Send a review request to customers from the last few months, and ask them to mention who they bought it for or what they use it for. That's the language gift shoppers use.
What three weeks won't fix
Everything above helps an assistant understand you. None of it makes an assistant think of you in the first place.
That comes from what other people say about you: editorial gift guides, review sites, forum threads, retailer listings, and a clear "best for" position that sources keep repeating. Assistants build their short lists from those sources, and those sources change over months. None of that moves much in three weeks.
So treat this Black Friday as your baseline. Check your Found ranking now, again the week after Cyber Monday, and again in January. Track how many visitors and sales come from AI assistants across the sale, using our guide to measuring whether AI search is making you money. Then start the longer work in January, ahead of Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and the end of financial year sales.
If you'd rather have that work done for you, Lift, our 100-day AEO partnership, starts from your Found baseline and works through the gaps. Starting in January gives it a few months to work before the end of financial year sales. Or book a call to talk through your results.
What not to do this month
A few Black Friday instincts work against you in AI search.
- Cutting prices to win the AI comparison. An assistant can only compare you if it already knows you. And when prices are equal, Australian shoppers say stock and delivery decide it. A deeper discount on a brand the assistant never mentions doesn't reach anyone.
- Publishing your own "best Black Friday deals" list with yourself at the top. Assistants lean on independent sources for a reason. A ranking you wrote about yourself carries little weight.
- Judging your visibility from one screenshot. Ask ChatGPT once on a Tuesday and you'll get one answer. Ask again on Thursday and you might get another. Weekly tracking across platforms tells you far more.
- Rebuilding your catalogue in sale week. Bulk-editing hundreds of products the week before Black Friday risks broken pages and wrong prices at your busiest time. Fix the products you're promoting and leave the rest for January.
The real cost is timing. All of this lands in the busiest weeks of your year, and someone on your team has to own it. If I could get a brand to do one thing this month, it would be price accuracy. It's what shoppers check most, and a wrong price loses the sale even when the assistant gets everything else right.
The bottom line
This Black Friday, plenty of your customers will meet your brand, or your competitor's, inside an AI answer before they reach a store. You can't change what the web says about you by 27 November. You can make sure that when an assistant does consider you, it has the right price, the right delivery date and a reason to say your name. Check your Found ranking this week, while there's still time to act on it.
Do Australians really use ChatGPT for Black Friday shopping?
Yes, and the share is growing. YouGov's 2026 report found 60% of likely Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers in Australia plan to use AI to help with the sales, up from 49% last year. Most use it to research and compare deals. Only 10% would let AI complete a purchase without checking first.
How do I check if ChatGPT recommends my brand?
Use a tracker that asks the same questions every week, because one-off answers vary. Found, Flux's free AI visibility ranking, asks ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews 150 buying questions per industry every week across Australia, the US and the UK. You can see your share of answers and who gets named instead. Then ask your own gift and deal questions on each assistant for extra context.
Can I improve my AI visibility before Black Friday?
Partly. In three weeks you can fix what assistants read directly: consistent sale prices, delivery cut-offs and returns written as text, gift pages with real descriptions, and product details on the items you're promoting. Getting named more often depends on third-party coverage and reviews, which build over months.
Will a bigger Black Friday discount help me show up in AI answers?
Not on its own. Assistants compare brands they already know about, so a discount only helps if you're already on the list. Australian shoppers also check AI-recommended deals before they buy, so an accurate, consistent price matters more than a headline percentage.
Are independent brands at a disadvantage in AI shopping answers?
Not necessarily. Shopify's 2026 research found 80% of Australians who almost always use AI to shop say they're choosing independent brands more often, compared with 40% of people who don't use AI. But when an assistant has little to say about a smaller brand, it tends to fall back on big marketplaces. Clear, specific information about who your products suit gives it a reason to name you.
Should I wait until after Black Friday to start on AI search?
Do the quick fixes now and start the longer work in January. Price accuracy, delivery information and gift page descriptions help this sale. Building coverage, reviews and a clear position takes months, so a January start puts you in a better spot for the next big sales period.
Flux is a Shopify Plus Agency for Advanced Engineering & AEO
- 60% of likely Australian Black Friday shoppers plan to use AI to help with the sales this year, up from 49%.
- AI does the shortlisting. Shoppers who arrive from an AI answer have often decided, and they convert better.
- Check where you stand first. Found tracks 22 Australian industries every week across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google.
- Gift and deal questions need price, who a product suits and delivery dates written in plain words.
- Before 27 November: match sale prices everywhere, write cut-offs and returns as text, add words to gift pages and ask for reviews.
- Getting named more often takes months. Treat this sale as your baseline and start the longer work in January.
- Don't cut prices to win AI comparisons, rank yourself in your own lists or rebuild your catalogue in sale week.
