According to YouGov, 49% of French shoppers likely to take part in Black Friday and Cyber Monday plan to use AI this year¹. As a brand, you need to anticipate this: for some of your customers, the purchase journey will no longer start on a retailer’s website, but in a conversation with an assistant such as ChatGPT.
And in that conversation, there are no aisles to browse and no results pages to scroll through: the assistant suggests a short selection of products. Those that are not on the list are left out of the decision, whatever the discount on offer
A precise question, a short list
While some consumers look for a product they already know, others ask for advice: “Which fragrance-free moisturiser for sensitive skin should I choose, on promotion for Black Friday, with a budget of €30 maximum?”.
No brand is mentioned. To be recommended, your product must therefore be identified from its characteristics alone: ingredients, use, skin type, price. If any of them is missing or unclear, the assistant will pick a better-documented competitor.
This habit kicks in before the purchase: according to Odoxa for Fevad, nearly 6 in 10 online shoppers who use AI for their purchases regularly turn to it beforehand². During Black Friday, the discount remains a criterion, but it comes on top of requirements around ingredients, use or compatibility. A slashed price is not enough if the product does not answer the question asked.
What AI looks for: precise, substantiated facts
For our moisturiser, a promise of “everyday comfort” does not help the assistant choose. By contrast, “fragrance-free”, “formulated for sensitive skin” or “dermatologically tested” directly match the request.
Each claim still needs to be explicit and substantiated. An assistant will not infer that a cream is suitable for sensitive skin because it is fragrance-free: these are two separate pieces of information. If your product is suitable for sensitive skin, the product page must say so clearly, and that claim must be backed by evidence, such as the results of a tolerance test.
For each product, the description should therefore specify:
- The uses and profiles the product is designed for (skin type, frequency of use, etc.);
- The characteristics that meet the stated constraints (ingredients, allergens, format, compatibility, etc.);
- The proven benefits, and what sets each product apart from the rest of the range or from competitors.
This information explains why your product is the right fit, even against a cheaper offer. It does not, however, guarantee a recommendation: assistants cross-reference several sources. ChatGPT, for example, says it relies in particular on structured data and third-party content, depending on the user’s request³. Hence the importance of publishing the same accurate information wherever your products are available.
PIM: a single source of truth for your products
To be picked up, these characteristics must be accessible and linked to the right product. Yet information known to your teams often stays in a technical file or a spreadsheet, never making it into published content.
A PIM, or Product Information Management system, centralises product information and manages its enrichment and validation before it is distributed to each channel. In particular, it handles attributes, variants and the relationships between products.
In practice, the claim “fragrance-free” is entered in a dedicated field, and the “sensitive skin” claim stays linked only to the cream for which it has been validated. If several sizes exist, their volumes and identifiers make it possible to tell them apart, without mistakenly extending a characteristic to the whole range.
This organisation must go hand in hand with checks. A complete product page is not necessarily an accurate one: it may still show an old ingredient list or attribute a benefit to the wrong variant. Before Black Friday, your teams therefore face a twofold challenge: checking that the information is accurate, then making sure it actually appears in the content sent to each retailer.
During Black Friday: be available, then be recommended
Being cited by AI is only worth something if the consumer can then buy the product. If the item is out of stock at the retailer they visit, they will look for it at another retailer, or choose another brand.
During Black Friday, availability is therefore the priority. Digital Shelf Analytics, or DSA, monitors how your products are listed and presented on retailer websites. The Equadis solution detects stock-outs and listing issues, among other things, with alerts by product and by retailer. Your teams can quickly identify the products affected and take action with their partners while the event is still running.
DSA also checks that shoppers find the right cream online, with the characteristics that sparked their interest. By comparing published content with the brand’s master data, it flags missing or inconsistent information. Its connection with the PIM then makes it possible to retrieve the validated version and trigger the right correction.
Your pre-Black Friday checklist
- Test your products: ask AI assistants the questions your customers ask, and see which brands are mentioned;
- Focus on your priority products: check that their key attributes (ingredients, use, profile, format) are filled in and substantiated;
- Align your channels: make sure this information is identical on your website and at each of your retailers;
- Monitor continuously: set up alerts on availability and product page compliance for the entire event.
With AI, Black Friday is no longer won on price alone. It is also won on the quality of your product data, and on the continuity between the recommended product and the offer available at the time of purchase. By combining data preparation in the PIM with online monitoring through DSA, Equadis helps you maximise your chances of being recommended, and stay visible at your retailers when demand is at its peak.
Are your product pages ready for AI assistants?
Talk to the Equadis team to assess the quality of your product information and how it appears online.
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Sources
1. YouGov, The bots and the basket : le rôle de l’IA durant le Black Friday / Cyber Monday 2026, (in French), 8 October 2026. Intention to use AI among likely Black Friday shoppers in France.
2. Odoxa pour la Fevad, Les cyberacheteurs et le commerce agentique, (in French), February 2026. The figure refers to online shoppers who already use AI for their online purchases.
3. OpenAI, Shopping with ChatGPT Search.
