Black Friday 2026: The AI answer is now on almost every search

Most Black Friday plans are built around one week in November. Shoppers do their thinking in October, comparing TVs, sofas and trainers long before the deals go live.

In 2026, that research happens on a page that looks nothing like last year’s. Most searches now come with an AI answer alongside the ads, and a new ad auction has opened inside ChatGPT.

Last September and October, the search “tvs” showed an AI Overview 2.6% of the time. This year, 98.6%. “Best tv” went from 48.8% to 95.5%, and “stand for tv” from 3.3% to 96.7%.

It isn’t only electronics. Across the five categories we track, AI Overviews appeared on 2% to 9% of searches in last year’s run-up to Black Friday and on 49% to 90% this year. In October alone, every category was above 60%.

Black Friday 2026 will be the first peak season where nearly every search comes with an AI answer. Your ad usually still sits above it, ahead of the AI Overview 70% to 93% of the time in September and October. But shoppers now read an answer that may not mention you.

In UK beauty this year, AI Overviews appeared on 49.6% of one- and two-word searches and on 91.8% of searches with seven words or more.

The long, specific questions shoppers ask while deciding are where the AI Overview lives. It shapes the shortlist in the research weeks, before your Black Friday deal ads go live.

When an AI Overview appears, the source it links to most often is Google itself. In UK multi-category retail, google.com took 23% of AI Overview citations in the last week of October. No retailer passed 2%.

UK beauty showed the same pattern. google.com was cited 8% of the time, ahead of the category’s leading retailer at 5%.

Organic citations are hard to win, and ads inside the AI Overview are still rare: under 7% of placements in the US categories we tracked, and none in the UK. For now, the ads around it are the visibility you control, which makes them more important this Black Friday, not less.

In US sportswear, ads mentioning Black Friday made up 2.1% of all ad copies running in October 2026, six times last October’s 0.3%. Old Navy ran “Early Black Friday Deals Are Here” through the month.

US home moved early too. Black Friday copy was already three times more common in September than a year earlier, and by October it made up 4.2% of all ad copies, up from 2.4%.

Electronics, beauty and multi-category retail held steady at roughly last year’s share. The early start is category-specific, so last year’s timing may already be late in your market.

Black Friday 2025 had no ChatGPT ads. On the 200 US home prompts we tracked, distinct advertisers went from 111 in September to 342 in October.

The leaderboard hasn’t settled. The category’s largest online retailer fell from 39.7% of ads to 27.2%, and Living Spaces from 15.8% to 3.0%. Meanwhile Povison climbed from 1.1% to 8.9%, while Temu and Quince each went from under 1% to 6.2%.

Many of these advertisers barely register on Google. Seven of October’s top 10 ChatGPT advertisers in home weren’t in Google’s top 10 for the category, and together they held 41% of ChatGPT ads. Google’s top advertiser didn’t make ChatGPT’s top 10 at all.

Discounts are already live. A quarter of the 40 most-seen ChatGPT Shopping ads in home showed a “was” price, with sectional sofas at up to 59% off. No Black Friday creative had appeared on these prompts by October 31, so the first brand to launch one sets the bar.

Black Friday falls on November 27, with Cyber Monday on November 30. That leaves just over three weeks.

1. Audit your AI Overview exposure. Pull your top 50 terms and check which now trigger an AI Overview and where your ads sit against it. Those terms need top-of-page coverage.
2. Split research and deal searches. Long research queries are where AI Overviews dominate. Give them their own budget and bids now, before deal terms take over in November.
3. Check your category’s timing. If competitors launched Black Friday copy early, as in sportswear and home, refresh your ads and promotions now rather than on the day.
4. Map your ChatGPT competitors. List who’s advertising on your category’s prompts, especially brands you never see on Google. Where ChatGPT ads are available, make sure your Shopping feed carries sale prices, because discounts are already showing.
5. Check weekly through Cyber Monday. In ChatGPT, one month was enough for the top advertiser to lose a third of its share.

Every number in this post comes from Adthena’s Whole Market View™, the data layer retailers use to track AI Overviews, competitor share and ChatGPT ads across every commercial search surface. The retailers who win peak season see the market move weeks before everyone else.

Book a demo and we’ll show you your own Black Friday market, from who’s moving in on your terms to where you sit in AI Overviews and ChatGPT.