Accenture announced its Holiday Shopping Survey 2025, with key findings, data and insights on what shoppers are thinking this holiday season. 

Accenture also draws attention to Noli, a beauty marketplace startup on a mission to solve shopping stress. 

Phase one of Accenture’s Holiday Survey, conducted among 3,000 consumers across 10 countries in August 2025, underscores an urgent need for retailers and brands to provide personalized and relevant information to inform buying decisions. 

With the Holiday season fast approaching, “shopper stress” is very present and is intensifying, according to the first of two holiday shopping surveys Accenture is conducting. 

More than 8 in 10 (84%) of consumers report that purchasing holiday gifts can be so overwhelming and frustrating that they abandoned their shopping carts entirely as a result. 

That figure rises among younger generations, with 89% Gen Z and 91% Millennials reporting they are likely to walk away from holiday gift purchases.

Concern over not buying the perfect holiday gift is a contributing factor to “shopper stress.” 

Three-quarters (75%) of shoppers say they are stressed about making the right decision, and 73% of shoppers are worried they will regret their choice later.

Jill Standish, Accenture’s global Retail lead, said, 

“AI-driven technologies such as generative AI can help ease ‘shopper stress’ by acting as a concierge, guiding and curating every step of the purchasing journey. The technology can help deliver experiences that feel personal, relevant, and timely by recommending options, comparing features, and even narrowing choices. For retailers and brands, it opens the door to deeper customer relationships and greater revenue streams.”

A time of year, when major advertising and promotional campaigns are launched to promote gift giving, the survey highlights a need for retailers and brands to take a highly targeted, data-driven approach to win a share of the festive spend. 

This comes as 82% of shoppers feel bombarded by advertising, up from 78% in Accenture’s Consumer Pulse Survey 2024, and 77% are overwhelmed by too many options (vs 74% in 2024).

Standish added, 

“It’s equally important not to overlook the impact generative AI can have within in-store experience. Armed with AI tools, retail associates can have instant access to product knowledge, customer preferences, and contextual prompts.”

Retailers with physical stores could stand to gain this season, as 45% of consumers say they will visit a store to see and assess products firsthand when faced with too much information while holiday shopping. 

Roughly half (48%) seek recommendations from friends and family, whereas one in five plan to use conversational assistants such as ChatGPT or Claude, and one third (34%) will search on social media to combat information overload.

Noli: No One Like I

Capitalizing on advances in AI is reflected in the demand Accenture is seeing in its own work across the consumer space, including with AI-powered multi-brand beauty startup, Noli, founded and backed by the L’Oréal Groupe. 

Noli—which stands for (No One Like I’)—is on a mission to empower every beauty consumer with their own intelligent and trusted advisor.

Co‑Founder & CEO Amos Susskind said, 

“AI is delivering real value anywhere there is decision complexity, emotional stakes, and a need for trust — and beauty embodies all three. At Noli, we’re using tech and AI to solve the number one pain point in beauty: helping people find the right product for them. Our goal is to bring clarity to a chaotic space, trust to a skeptical audience, and unmatched intelligence to a deeply personal experience.”

The company is reinventing how people discover and shop beauty products by addressing the number one pain point for beauty customers—too many options, and a lack of unbiased, often conflicting, advice in the market.

Noli cuts through the beauty noise with AI diagnostics trained on 1 million skin data points and thousands of product formulations. 

It decodes each user’s beauty profile and delivers confident product picks to their door.

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