FLASH: Perplexity+PayPal Launch Their 'Instant Buy' Collab Plus Adobe Releases Nov 1-23 Early Holiday 25 Read

Another checkbox for our Holiday 25 Agentic Commerce Tracker - we have details on launch partners, how to save 50% off one item and the Adobe data is 🔥

Agentic Commerce Tracker for Holiday 2025

Here’s where we are and days left to go:

✅ ChatGPT Surprise (ChatGPT Shopping Research launched Monday 11/24 - details and exclusive live walk-through/analysis here)

✅ Target App launches in ChatGPT

✅ Perplexity/PayPal ‘Instant Buy’?

❓Walmart on ChatGPT?

❓Salesforce SCC on ChatGPT (watching Pandora, Adidas, Michael Kors and Loreal)

❓Microsoft Copilot agentic commerce - coming out for season or no?

❓ Any (more) surprises, if we’re gonna have (any more) big surprises, it’ll be this week

Perplexity and PayPal Launch

Today (PayPal and Perplexity simultanously announced the launch of the new upgraded shopping experience on Perplexity powered by PayPal. It’s a complete re-do 2 days before season which is one of the boldest moves I’ve seen after being in the ecommerce biz for ~30yrs.

Here’s the Instant Buy sizzle video:

Details, Merchants and Features of the New Perplexity Instant Buy

There’s some interesting features in this one Perplexity is leaning in on:

• Free for all - whereas “Buy with Pro” required the paid Perplexity Pro plan

• Discovery that thinks the way you think - Perplexity throws a bit of shade on ChatGPT and says they aren’t just regurgitating “generic top-ten lists” which are notoriously a huge influence on ChatGPTs thinking

• A shopping assistant that knows you - Here Perplexity leans in on memory - over time Perplexity learns your style (furniture, apparel, etc) and uses that. They throw shade at Google: stating they show you want you want, “not what advertisers want to sell first.”

• Don’t dig through digital racks - Perplexity narrows down the choices to a handful of Product Cards for you and gives you all the specs and details needed to make your final choice. Here they throw Google Shopping under the bus: “Endlessly scrollable grids have never been the best way to buy throw pillows.”

• Stay in the flow - Because they partnered with PayPal, if you already have PayPal features like PayPal Fastlane enabled already, you’re good to go.

Save 50% off one Item (up to $50!) by Using Instant Buy

To celebrate the launch and the start of the holiday shopping season, PayPal is introducing a special incentive for users to experience the future of AI commerce. Beginning 9:00 am ET on November 25, 2025, through 11:59 pm ET on December 1, 2025, customers who complete their first purchase using PayPal within Perplexity will receive 50% back, up to $50. This exclusive offer delivers a rewarding first shopping experience on Perplexity for those looking to benefit from the simplicity and speed of AI shopping. Read the promotion terms and exclusions here.

So the baller move here is to find something in the $100-120 zone you expected to buy for the holiday and get half off, but act before 12/1!

Launch Partner Merchants

The Perplexity/PayPal launch partner merchants are:

• Abercrombie & Fitch

• Ashley Furniture

• Fabletics

• Adorama

• NewEgg

The Ashley Furniture CTO David Sink posted some details on LinkedIn:

Congrats to David and the team, I’ve been on a death match drive like this before and it’s simultaneously the hardest and most rewarding problem you’ll tackle.

Perplexity and PayPal Instant Buy Live Demo

Unfortunately while I have ~10 perplexity accounts of various size and ages, none of them have access to this feature yet as of 8am 11/26/26 ET. Stay tuned for a special live demo post once one of our accounts has this turned on in the wild. Until then, here’s a snapshot from the sizzle real so you can see the new Instant buy and ‘Compare’ feature

s

Adobe Releases Nov 1-22 Early Read on Holiday 25

Editorial Note: I think of all the data we receive on Holiday 25 as ‘directionally helpful’ to understand the ‘scope and shape’ of the season. Some times we see a front end loaded holiday, other times we see see a ‘V’ shape (big kick off, lull, big last 5 days 12/15-12/20). Until the dust settles well into Q1, we won’t know what happened in it’s totality, but it is helpful to see what we can learn from these earlier pieces of data and triangulate back to this point from Q1 2026.

Adobe this am is releasing their data for the start of Holiday 2025 which covers Nov 1-23:

AI Datapoints

• In the first 23 days, Agentic Commerce traffic is up 830% y/y

• Top GenAI used categories: toys, video games, appliances, personal care/beauty and electronics.

• Users that land on a US retail site from a GenAI citation convert at 30% higher rate than non AI traffic.

• An updated survey reveals 32% of consumers have actively used AI shopping and 48% intend to. 81% report that AI enhanced their shopping experience

Non-AI Datapoints

• Sales are trending up 7.5% y/y so far in the first 23 days

• Early deals (savings up to 12%) are pulling forward some demand, but most consumers waiting for CyberFive where deals are expected to range as high as 29% peaking at CyberMonday.

• BNPL usage grew 10.3% y/y (clearly taking share)

• Early category winner is grocery up 11.5% y/y and cosmetics/beauty up 7.15%

• Many home items are growing rapidly with some categories up 106% (refrigerators/home freezers) power tools (up 96% YoY), garage storage (up 94% YoY), washers/dryers (up 88% YoY), and smart home items (up 80% YoY)

More details are available here.

Coming Up…

We’ll be keeping an eye out for access to Perplexity/Paypal Instant Buy and post a demo when we have access and also, of course, any last minute breaking news before Thanksgiving that drop in the next 12hrs. We’re down to the end of the line, what is going to sneak in under the deadline here?!