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AI-driven ecommerce: Winning holiday shopping with smarter search & faster hosting

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See how AI search trends and high-performance hosting can make this your best-selling Black Friday yet. Learn how AI-driven ecommerce is changing this holiday season in an expert webinar from Liquid Web and BrightEdge.

Watch on demand now.

In today’s ecommerce landscape, AI is redefining how consumers discover, evaluate, and purchase. From generative AI search experiences to shopping within apps and voice-enabled devices, traditional SEO and infrastructure models are being disrupted.

This is where BrightEdge and Liquid Web come together.

Two powerhouses, one in intelligent search insights, the other in high-performance hosting, uniting to equip ecommerce businesses for the most pivotal holiday season yet.

BrightEdge brings real-time search and content performance intelligence that helps you understand:

  • How AI search is shifting consumer intent.
  • Where your brand visibility matters most.
  • What content drives pre-holiday discovery and trust.

Liquid Web complements this with managed hosting infrastructure that gives you:

  • Faster load times and better UX at scale (crucial for conversions).
  • More control and security than cloud at a lower total cost.
  • Proven reliability when your competitors crash under peak traffic.

Together, we share new ecommerce search trends, platform data, and tactical recommendations, giving you the blueprint to outperform, outpace, and outsell.

Watch on demand now.

AI-driven ecommerce for the holidays: A comprehensive recap

The holiday shopping season is always the ultimate stress test for ecommerce businesses. This year, the pressure is even higher as artificial intelligence reshapes how customers discover, evaluate, and purchase products online.

To help brands prepare, Liquid Web and BrightEdge co-hosted a timely webinar: AI-Driven Ecommerce: Winning Holiday Shopping with Smarter Search and Faster Hosting.

The session featured insights from:

  • Amanda Valle, Global Director of Organic Search at Liquid Web (host)
  • Dave McAnally, Product Marketing Manager at BrightEdge
  • Kelly Goolsby, Director of Solution Architecture at Liquid Web
  • Aaron Tevlowitz, Partner Team Manager at Liquid Web

Together, the panel explored how AI is changing search behavior, what it means for content and product pages, and why infrastructure performance is now directly tied to revenue. Below is a detailed recap of the session’s most important insights and takeaways.

AI is changing discovery and recommendation

Dave McAnally opened with an overview of how AI is transforming the search experience. In the past, a query like “best gifts for college students” would return a ranked list of links, leaving shoppers to filter results themselves. Today, engines like Google, ChatGPT, and Perplexity are using AI to deliver contextual recommendations, effectively acting as trusted advisers.

This marks a fundamental shift. Search is no longer just about being visible, it’s about being the brand AI recommends.

Key points:

  • Google still dominates: Despite the rise of ChatGPT, Google maintains about 90 percent of the search market. AI overviews have actually increased search activity on Google.
  • Search behavior is more conversational: Queries of 8+ words are up 18 percent year-over-year as users adopt “question-like” phrasing influenced by generative AI.
  • Holiday demand is climbing: Overall search demand is expected to rise 9 percent this holiday season, continuing 2024’s strong momentum.
  • Product specificity is rising: Shoppers are searching for “OLED TVs” and “gaming laptops,” not just “TVs” or “laptops.”

The implication? Brands must go beyond traditional SEO rankings and optimize for AI-driven recommendation systems.

SEO fundamentals still matter

While AI represents a new paradigm, the foundation of strong SEO remains the same. As Dave explained, Google confirmed that well-structured SEO practices align closely with what helps content appear in AI-driven results.

Practical strategies include:

  • Content structuring: Use long-tail queries in headers and FAQs. Instead of “remote-controlled car,” think “best remote-controlled cars for preteens.”
  • Meta descriptions: Incorporate conversational search phrases that echo how people type queries into AI.
  • Technical SEO: Fast load speeds, mobile optimization, and crawl-friendly structures are even more critical as newer AI crawlers lag behind Google’s sophistication.
  • Multimedia: Unboxing videos and tutorials are seeing surging demand (+28 percent year over year) and are favored in AI-generated overviews, especially when hosted on YouTube.

The rise of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) doesn’t replace SEO, it extends it. Businesses that already focus on content quality, site structure, and performance have a head start in the AI era.

Performance is revenue

From there, the conversation shifted to the hosting side. Amanda highlighted three “fast truths” Liquid Web has observed from customer research:

  1. Abandonment: Most shoppers leave slow-loading pages, often switching to competitors.
  2. Patience window: Six seconds on a product page during peak traffic is too long, according to a recent Liquid Web site speed study. Even three seconds feels like an eternity in a buying moment.
  3. Conversion lift: A one-second improvement in page load time can meaningfully boost conversions.

Liquid Web treats speed not as a vanity metric, but as a direct driver of revenue.

The cost of downtime and delay

Aaron Tevlowitz took the audience deeper into customer psychology and cost analysis. Six seconds is not only the window before shoppers abandon, it’s also how long it takes someone to form or change their impression of a site. If they leave frustrated during Black Friday, they’re unlikely to return. Key data points shared include:

  • Downtime costs: The average hour of ecommerce downtime costs ~$3,000 in lost sales.
  • Opportunity loss: If a site is slow or unavailable during peak holiday shopping, customers don’t just delay, they switch to competitors permanently.
  • Comparison shopping: Already up 124 percent during holiday seasons. Slow sites amplify this trend by pushing customers toward alternatives.

Aaron’s message was clear: “Spend the money so you can make the money.” Right-sizing your ecommerce hosting environment is an investment in keeping customers, not just acquiring them.

👉  Learn more about the staggering cost of downtime in our recent report, The cost of server downtime on businesses and teams.

Preparing infrastructure for peak traffic

Kelly Goolsby followed with a practical playbook for preparing infrastructure ahead of the holiday rush. His guidance stressed that there’s no one-size-fits-all calculator, it requires understanding each business’s traffic, promotions, and technical stack.

Factors to review before Black Friday:

  • Historical data: Last year’s traffic curve and how this year’s campaigns differ.
  • Peak checkout concurrency: Checkout loads databases with personalization, fraud checks, and product combinations. This is the choke point.
  • Geo & time zone mix: Global vs local campaigns shape traffic patterns.
  • Caching strategy: Use an “outside-in” approach: CDN → full page caching → search caching → object caching.
  • Third-party dependencies: Fraud checks, ad servers, and payment providers can bottleneck performance.
  • Database queries: Identify and fix slow queries before October.
  • Load testing: Simulate bursts that match your planned promotions.
  • Operational readiness: Who is on call when issues arise? Vendors, developers, and partners all need to be aligned.

Security and performance intertwined

Goolsby emphasized that performance and security cannot be separated:

  • Malicious bots and malware slow down sites and weaken SEO.
  • AI-driven crawlers need access, but you must balance this with blocking harmful traffic.
  • Updated infrastructure improves both performance and security by reducing exploitable vulnerabilities.

Final takeaways

The webinar underscored two central truths:

  1. AI is redefining search. Engines aren’t just showing results, they’re recommending brands. Winning in this environment requires strong SEO foundations, conversational content, technical optimization, and multimedia assets.
  2. Performance is strategy. Page speed, caching, scalability, and security aren’t IT checkboxes, they’re revenue drivers. Even milliseconds matter when customers are comparing options.

As Amanda concluded, “Speed is strategy, stability is revenue insurance.”

Liquid Web and BrightEdge encourage ecommerce businesses to prepare now. From SEO alignment to hosting readiness, the brands that invest early will capture the largest share of this year’s growing holiday demand.


Book your holiday readiness session now

Check out our high-performance hosting plans and Black Friday deals to get started today, or reach out to BrightEdge or Kelly from Liquid Web to discuss your holiday readiness plans now.

Contact Liquid Web
Contact BrightEdge

Read the transcript

Please note that AI was used to remove filler words for clarity.

Amanda (Host, Speaker 0):
Hi, everyone! Welcome to AI-Driven Ecommerce: Winning Holiday Shopping with Smarter Search and Faster Hosting. I’m Amanda, Global Director of Organic Search at Liquid Web, and your host today.

In today’s ecommerce landscape, AI is redefining how customers discover, evaluate, and purchase. From generative AI search experiences to shopping inside apps and on voice-enabled devices, traditional SEO and infrastructure models are being disrupted.

This is where BrightEdge and Liquid Web come together: BrightEdge delivers intelligent search insights, and Liquid Web provides high-performance hosting. Together, we help ecommerce teams prepare for their most pivotal holiday season yet.

We’ll share ecommerce search trends, platform data, and technical recommendations—giving you a clear blueprint to outperform, outpace, and outsell this season.

Quick housekeeping:

  • The session is recorded. You’ll receive the replay and resources by email.
  • Chat is off for focus, but Q&A is open throughout.
  • If we run out of time, unanswered questions will be addressed in our follow-up post.

Joining me today are:

  • Dave McAnally from BrightEdge, Product Marketing Manager with 25+ years in SEO, including leading Omnicom’s global SEO practice.
  • Kelly Goolsby, Director of Solution Architecture at Liquid Web, with 20+ years of experience in hosting and technical sales.
  • Aaron Tevlowitz, Partner Team Manager at Liquid Web, who has helped hundreds of partners prepare for growth, flash sales, and Black Friday.

Welcome, everyone!

Let’s start with a quick poll: What proves you’re holiday-ready? Kristina, please post the poll…

[Poll results: Peak checkout concurrency, hit rate, caching effectiveness, and traffic growth.]

Kelly, can you give us a quick perspective before we move on to Dave?

Kelly (Speaker 1):
Sure. Honestly, it depends. Daily visitors can be misleading; hourly visitors are more meaningful, especially during peak checkout. Checkout is resource-heavy — personalization, product combinations, fraud checks, third-party calls — all of these can slow performance and strain databases. So, there’s no single right answer. It all depends on your stack and setup.

Amanda:
Thanks, Kelly. Now I’ll hand it over to Dave, who’ll walk us through how AI has changed discovery and what it means for product pages and content planning.

Dave (Speaker 2):
Thanks, Amanda. Hi, everyone, I’m excited to be here. Hard to believe we’re already talking about the 2025 holiday season!

At BrightEdge, we’re an SEO platform working with many enterprise ecommerce brands. Through that, we gather unique data and trends, which I’ll share today.

With AI in search, we’ve built technology to analyze how engines interpret queries. For example, when you ask, “What are some good gifts for college students?” Google now provides contextual, AI-driven recommendations instead of just listing ranked links.

This is critical because engines aren’t just returning results anymore—they’re recommending brands. That’s a fundamental shift. Winning in this environment isn’t just about ranking, it’s about being the brand the AI chooses to recommend.

Market impact

Some people wonder if ChatGPT and others are taking market share from Google. The answer is no. Google still holds about 90 percent of search volume. In fact, AI overviews have increased Google usage. Since rollout last fall, we’ve seen ~46 percent month-over-month growth in AI-powered results.

What this means for ecommerce

  • Strong SEO fundamentals still matter. Google has confirmed that good SEO practices align closely with what helps AI-driven search.
  • Queries are getting longer and more conversational, up 18 percent year over year.
  • Comparison shopping, personalization, and local queries all spike during the holidays.
  • Demand for unboxing/tutorial videos is up 28 percent. AI increasingly leverages video content, especially from YouTube.
  • Premium product searches (OLED TVs, gaming laptops) are rising.

Performance matters

Holiday demand is projected to be up ~9 percent year over year. Pages that load faster and provide smoother experiences are ranking higher. Conversely, heavy scripts, pop-ups, and third-party calls can hurt Core Web Vitals, SEO, and AI indexing.

Bottom line: brands that focus on fast, technically sound sites will be favored in both traditional and AI-driven search.

Amanda:
Thanks, Dave. That was really insightful, especially the point about site performance being tied directly to revenue. At Liquid Web, we treat speed as a revenue metric, not a vanity score.

With that in mind, I’ll pass it over to Aaron to talk about what this means for customers in real-world hosting environments.

Aaron (Speaker 3):
Thanks, Amanda. Let’s revisit that “six-second” benchmark you mentioned.

Six seconds may feel quick, but in ecommerce it’s an eternity. In that time, customers form opinions about your site—and if they’re frustrated, they leave and don’t come back, especially during Black Friday when options are everywhere.

The cost of downtime or slowness is real: the average hour of downtime costs around $3,000. On peak sales days, that number multiplies fast. And remember, comparison shopping is already up 124 percent, don’t let your site speed be the reason shoppers switch to competitors.

Investing in right-sizing your hosting environment ensures you can handle peak traffic and keep customers converting instead of bouncing.

Now, I’ll hand it to Kelly to dig into the technical side.

Kelly:
Thanks, Aaron. Let’s talk strategy.

Key considerations for peak readiness

  • History & forecasting: Start with last year’s traffic curves, then factor in new marketing plans and promos.
  • Peak checkout concurrency: This is where personalization and database load matter most.
  • Geo & time zone mix: Local vs. global audiences change traffic patterns significantly.
  • Caching strategy: Use an “outside-in” approach (CDN → page caching → search caching → object caching like Redis).
  • Third-party dependencies: Fraud checks, ad servers, and payment gateways can become bottlenecks.
  • Database optimization: Identify and resolve slow queries before October.
  • Load testing: Match testing to your promo campaigns.
  • Ops & rollback plans: Know who’s on call and have a clear recovery plan if things break.

Security + performance

Bots, malware injections, and outdated infrastructure can all slow sites down. Security and performance are intertwined: a faster site is also harder to exploit. Updated infrastructure boosts both.

Bottom line: preparation is everything.

Amanda:
Thanks, Kelly. And as a reminder, you can book a Holiday Readiness Session with Erin and Kelly. They’ll map last year’s curve, apply growth assumptions, pressure-test your stack, and give you a clear go/no-go plan—plus quick wins on TTFB, caching, and checkout stability.

Before we wrap, let’s run one more poll: What will you change in the next 30 days?

[Poll launched.]

Q&A Highlights:

Q: How do you decide between scaling up vs. scaling out for Black Friday traffic?

  • Kelly: It depends. Scaling up (adding RAM/CPU) can be faster, but scaling out (adding more front-end servers) is usually better for web tiers. Databases are trickier and may need to scale up. Often, it’s a mix of both.

Q: How can I measure AI’s impact on Google search leading into the holidays?

  • Dave: Look at referral traffic from AI engines and monitor click-through rates in organic results. At BrightEdge, we combine Google Search Console data with AI overview tracking so you can see how much traffic AI is diverting vs driving.

Amanda (Closing):
Thank you all for joining today. Remember: speed is strategy, stability is revenue insurance.

Watch for the replay in your inbox, and don’t forget to book your readiness session. Huge thanks to Dave, Kelly, and Aaron for their insights, and thank you all for sharing your time with us.