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Christmas shopping – some love it, to others it’s a chore and this year for the first time many of us will outsource the annual task of coming up with gift ideas to artificial intelligence.
While traditional internet search, social media – especially TikTok and Instagram – and simply wandering a local high street will still be the main routes to presents for most this year, about a quarter of people in the UK are already using AI to find the right products, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.
For brands appealing to younger people, the revolution is well under way: the rival advisory firm KPMG says as many as 30% of shoppers aged 25-34 are using AI to find products, compared with 1% of those aged over 65.
Asking a large language model (LLM) such as ChatGPT or Gemini what you should get your father-in-law – rather than typing “whisky” or “socks” into Google or DuckDuckGo – may seem a small change in habits. However, it marks a sea change for retailers accustomed to paying search engines to promote their listings.
LLMs allow users to ask questions in conversational language, perhaps by speaking into their computer or phone. Instead of just providing a list of links, they offer specific suggestions with the potential for big sales for items that are regularly recommended.
The chatbots produce their responses by scraping the internet and inbuilt datasets for relevant information, with some sources given more trusted status than others.
Companies large and small are scrambling to adapt to this new world where the keywords and advertising deals previously central to web marketing hold less importance than the reviewers’ opinions, accurate availability information and product details read by LLMs such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Meta’s Llama.
The shake-up may create an opening for independent businesses to cut through online, but some big brands are concerned they will be lost in a wild west where it is unclear how to reach the consumer. Marketers must now appeal not only to shoppers directly but also to their AI bots.
“Retailers can’t buy their way into the search – they have to earn it,” says Emma Ford, the director of digital transformation for PwC UK. “The experience, expertise, authenticity and trustworthiness [of a brand online] help. Sentiment across the internet is really important.”
Several large UK retailers have told the Guardian they already have teams on the case looking at a wide variety of tactics, from making sure they appear in Reddit forums – a key source for some platforms – to responding to reviews on Google or Trustpilot, and ensuring AI models can access the correct product data.
While some say they are being cautious with resources, amid signs certain individual LLMs could disappear as rapidly as they have sprung up, the belief is that this new way of interacting online is here to stay.
Nickyl Raithatha, the chief executive of the online card and gift seller Moonpig, says AI search’s relevance for companies this year is relatively low but his company is well-prepared for rapid change.
He says Moonpig is ensuring its products are picked up in AI search by using generative engine optimisation (GEO) techniques such as “online content with people discussing the best way to make someone happy on Mothers Day” in its own content or on discussions boards and in YouTube videos. He adds: “There is a growing science around this and we are all learning.”
Ford says businesses are still feeling their way into the nuances of how the technology will find and respond to their online presence. Online reviews, for example, are clearly a factor in AI decision-making, but it is not clear how much importance is placed on particular platforms or how they rank against other factors such as reliable availability data, longevity of a brand or secure payment options.
It may be that suppliers that have been around longer and have a broader profile are foregrounded, but their long history of ups and downs could also play against them.
“I do think AI will change retail for the next 20 years,” says Peter Ruis, the managing director of John Lewis. He contends that established brands such as his will benefit from having a strong reputation with the technology in place to sell online, while shoppers could discover they stock items previously assumed to have been available only at a specialist.
In future, industry watchers believe, ChatGPT, Amazon and Google are likely to try to monetise their AI platforms with some form of paid search or featured ads.
More sophisticated “AI agent” models are also being developed – bots that can autonomously perform complex multistage tasks such as seeking out the best deals, placing orders and organising delivery.
For example, it could be possible for these digital secretaries to negotiate offers tailored to particular customers, such as bundling together a number of furniture purchases from various outlets during a move, which have been customised to fit budget, style and delivery preferences, according to the advisory firm McKinsey.
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That could lead retailers into allowing their systems to flex product prices to attract particular searchers.
Organising the return of an unwanted item could also be taken on by AI agents, with one acting on behalf of the shoppers and the other for the retailer.
However, such technology is fraught with potential pitfalls. Retailers will need systems that can cope with a potential flurry of queries and to have clear rules on who might be responsible for glitches such as unwanted purchases made by a bot.
In the US, the online marketplace Etsy was the first to team up with ChatGPT to make it possible to pay for goods via the LLM’s instant checkout service. The e-commerce platform Shopify and the retailers Walmart and Target swiftly followed. While the deals do not appear to prioritise their products in searches, the inclusion of a “buy” button for their goods could put them ahead of the pack.
Anna Bancroft, a partner in PwC’s digital transformation team, points out that under current UK rules it is not possible for an AI bot to make a purchase on behalf of a human, and regulation would need to change for such systems to run without human oversight. She says retailers and shoppers are cautious about giving the robots access to customer data and handling payment.
There are also concerns about agents being susceptible to manipulation, as Microsoft has found in research simulations. Meanwhile, tech retail players are becoming territorial about who gets to crawl whose data.
Last month, Amazon sued the AI company Perplexity over its shopping feature that automates placing orders for users. Amazon accused the startup of covertly accessing customer accounts and disguising AI activity as human browsing. Perplexity hit back, defending users’ right to delegate their shopping to AI agents and calling the suit “a bully tactic to suppress competition”.
In this rapidly shifting landscape, Ford suggests independent retailers may have a chance to shine. “Independents have potential to go faster,” she says, with the ability to respond nimbly without having to sign off large budgets.
Michelle Ovens, the founder of Small Business Britain, which advises independent retailers on how to survive on the changing high street, agrees. “[Independent businesses] don’t necessarily need to spend a lot of money. You don’t necessarily need a big team,” she says.
Ovens advises local shopkeepers to ask AI platforms themselves how best to make sure they can appear. “Be clear about who you are,” she says, with a description making clear that you are an independent specialist, up-to-date pictures and “encourage customers who have got experience of the brand to give a good review”.
However, all of this should not stand ahead of making a website engaging and easy to shop on, Ovens adds. “There will not be a dramatic shift this Christmas. We’ll see change over time and operators will rise to the challenge.”
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Tui, Europe’s biggest travel operator, has said it is investing heavily in AI as more people turn to ChatGPT to help book their holidays, including using the technology to create “inspirational” videos and content.
The chief executive, Sebastian Ebel, said the company was investing in generative engine optimisation (GEO), the latest incarnation of search engine optimisation (SEO), to help push Tui to the top of results from AI chatbots including ChatGPT and Gemini.
While traditional SEO relied on links and keywords to increase visibility in search engine results, GEO tries to increase recommendations via chatbots by ensuring a product is mentioned in the message boards, videos and other online datasets that the AI agents crunch to produce their answers.
Ebel said connecting to large language models and social media companies would help Tui to grow. “By being part of their ecosystem, not depending on Google alone any more, [we are] going into the space where our customer is,” he said. “We are building a partnership where we can optimise search, where we can broaden distribution and proximity to ChatGPT and TikTok.”
It comes as people increasingly use AI agents – autonomous digital secretaries – to help with their online shopping. This year OpenAI, Perplexity, Google and Microsoft all launched AI features that allow users to search for products through their chatbots, with agents that can complete orders on behalf of consumers.
Tui said it was using AI to help create “inspirational videos, content and translations to improve trip planning”, as well as AI-powered voice and chat agents for customer services.
It is the latest effort by the German travel operator to incorporate AI technology into its customer experience, after it started using ChatGPT in its app to provide holiday recommendations in 2023. Its first launch had some hiccups, with the Guardian finding at the time that the bot struggled with basic conversation.
Tui reported annual pre-tax profits up 20% to just over €1bn (£904m), close to a record high. Revenue rose 4% to €24.2bn but is expected to grow at a slower rate next year, between 2% and 4%, reflecting “prevailing macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties”, Tui said.
The company, which has been struggling in its core German market, also laid out plans to cut costs by €250m by 2028, though Ebel insisted “there is a big difference in having less jobs versus cutting jobs”.
He said: “Our workforce is changing and we are getting more efficient. We will not get less people in total. We want to grow and we want to be more efficient.”
The company, which is headquartered in Hanover, employs about 67,000 people around the world. Its shares fell by 2.8% in early trading on Tuesday and are down by about 34% over the past five years.
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Ebel said he was “very unsatisfied” with the share price, though the chief financial officer, Mathias Kiep, said a new dividend policy of €0.10 a share could help revive the stock.
The company signalled that some of the price pressure on travellers could ease, with Ebel saying the market was “over the high inflation times”.
Holiday bookings for next summer have been positive so far, Tui said, with popular destinations for 2026 including Greece, the Balearic Islands and Turkey.
McDonald’s has taken down a Christmas advert made with Artificial Intelligence (AI) following online backlash.
The 45-second advert was produced with generative AI clips and released publicly on McDonald’s Netherlands YouTube channel on 6 December.
Viewers on social media denounced the use of AI in the film, with one commenter calling it “the most god-awful ad I’ve seen this year”.
On 9 December McDonald’s Netherlands removed the video, adding in a statement to BBC News that the moment served as “an important learning” as the company explored “the effective use of AI”.
The advert was created for McDonald’s by Dutch company TBWANeboko and US production company The Sweetshop.
Adverts which include generative AI have become a growing trend among major brands, such as Coca-Cola, particularly for the Christmas season.
The McDonald’s advert depicted things that can go wrong during the Christmas break, using the slogan “the most terrible time of the year”, and suggesting the time was better spent in the company of the fast food giant.
Following its release, viewers criticised the film’s uncanny-looking characters and large number of stitched together clips, calling it “creepy” and “poorly edited”.
As clips made using generative AI are more likely to distort the longer they run for – most clips made using the process tend to be roughly six to 10 seconds long – even a 45-second advert would likely consist of many videos edited together.
The video also provoked concerns for job displacement in the industry, with one Instagram comment noting: “No actors, no camera team..welcome to the future of filmmaking. And it sucks.”
Following the video being made private on the McDonald’s Netherlands YouTube channel, The Sweetshop’s chief executive Melanie Bridge defended the advert.
As quoted in Futurism, she said the production process took “seven weeks” where the team “hardly slept” and created “thousands of takes – then shaped them in the edit just as we would on any high-craft production”.
“This wasn’t an AI trick,” she said. “It was a film.”
In a statement to BBC News, McDonald’s Netherlands said the video was meant to “reflect the stressful moments that can occur during the holidays” but had decided to remove the advert.
“This moment serves as an important learning as we explore the effective use of AI,” it said.
Where normally a high-publicity Christmas campaign could take up to a year to pull off, companies have begun to look to firms which can produce films in a much shorter time span, using prompts from generative AI tools to create new video content.
Coca-Cola seems to have been able to sway at least some of the general public with its second AI-generated Christmas ad in a row.
While the use of AI to create the advert has been divisive, a report from analytics company Social Sprout found it had a 61% “positive sentiment rating” from commenters online.
But several other businesses such as the Italian luxury fashion house Valentino have come under fire for using the technique in their campaigns, with critics calling Valentino’s advert “cheap” and “lazy”.
BBC News has contacted The Sweetshop and TBWANeboko for comment.
The startup Fervo Energy just raised another $462 million to build America’s next generation of geothermal power plants.
On Wednesday, the Houston-based company said it closed a Series E funding round led by a new investor, B Capital, a global venture capital firm started by Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin. With the latest announcement, Fervo says it’s raised about $1.5 billion overall since 2017 as it develops what could become the world’s largest “enhanced geothermal system” in Utah.
“Fervo is setting the pace for the next era of clean, affordable, and reliable power in the U.S.,” Jeff Johnson, general partner at B Capital, said in a news release.
The Series E funding comes as Fervo reportedly prepares to become a publicly traded company, which would let it raise even more capital for its ambitious projects. When asked about a potential IPO, Fervo said only that the company is “focused on executing our development plan” in an email to Canary Media. “We have a lot of capital needs going forward to fuel our planned growth and will be tapping a lot of different opportunities to make that happen.”
The carbon-free energy from deep underground is available around the clock, but it represents only about 0.4% of total U.S. electricity generation — largely because the existing technology is constrained by geography. Today’s geothermal plants rely on naturally occurring reservoirs of hot water and steam to spin their turbines and generate power, which are available in a limited number of places.
Fervo’s approach involves creating its own reservoirs by fracturing hot rocks and pumping them full of water. The company uses the same horizontal drilling techniques and fiber-optic sensing tools as the oil and gas industry in an effort to reach deeper wells and hotter sources than is possible with conventional geothermal technology.
Its flagship development, Cape Station, is well underway in Beaver County, Utah. The project’s initial 100-megawatt installation is on track to start delivering power to the grid in October 2026, which will make it the first commercial-scale enhanced geothermal project to hit such a milestone worldwide, according to Fervo. An additional 400 MW is slated to come online in 2028.
US regulatory officials are re-examining the safety of RSV shots despite no published reports of safety issues – a move that could lead to the removal or limitation of shots that have dramatically lowered hospitalizations among babies.
It’s the latest move from US health officials under Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and a longtime anti-vaccine activist, to limit access to shots and to undermine public trust in the safe and effective products.
Officials at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told three manufacturers of RSV preventative treatments for babies last week their products are being reviewed because of safety concerns raised by anti-vaccine activists, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
When asked by the Guardian if the FDA was reviewing the preventative shots and maternal RSV shots, a spokesperson confirmed the news.
The FDA routinely evaluates safety information about approved drugs, HHS press secretary Emily Hilliard said. A team at the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research “is rigorously reviewing the available data, as it does for all products, to ensure decisions remain rooted in evidence-based science and in the best interest of patients”, Hilliard said.
The spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether the review was prompted by safety signals or anti-vaccine activists, and did not respond by press time to a question clarifying whether the review applies to shots for both babies and pregnant people.
“The RSV shots were the first time we had any kind of tools to prevent these complications,” said Elias Kass, a naturopathic physician specializing in pediatrics in Seattle, Washington.
RSV was the most common cause of hospitalization among US infants, he added: “To have a tool to prevent that is incredible.”
There were two working groups assessing evidence on RSV for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). One group focused on the vaccines given during pregnancy and the other on the preventative shots given to babies.
Neither group appears to have met since Kennedy fired all 17 previous advisers and replaced them with his own hand-picked advisers.
Kevin Ault, a former ACIP adviser and an obstetrician/gynecologist who has remained a liaison for the committee, was on the RSV working group for maternal vaccination until it stopped meeting. No new safety information about RSV shots has been released, Ault said.
In fact, news from the group was positive.
“There were concerns about pre-term delivery as a safety signal in the original maternal trials, but there have been subsequent safety data that shows that’s not an increased risk,” Ault said. That evidence was publicly discussed by the previous ACIP advisers.
“The efficacy and the safety signals have both been very reassuring,” Ault said.
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Even so, the new vaccine advisers in their meeting last week made several comments about re-evaluating the vaccines given during pregnancy, saying they have “a new way of looking at pregnancy and vaccines,” Ault said. But no information about this new approach has been given to the public.
The shots to prevent RSV are one of the greatest public health breakthroughs in recent years, with dramatic declines in hospitalization, Ault said.
Vaccinating during pregnancy was 55% to 68% effective in keeping newborns from being hospitalized in the first six months of their lives, according to a survey of studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine in October.
Babies who were given the preventative antibody shots were 79% to 83% less likely to be hospitalized, the study found.
Decisions from the FDA could limit access to the shots, and public health experts worry that the announcements, without evidence, undermining the shots could affect public trust and confidence in vaccine safety.
Before the shots were widely available, 2% to 3% of all infants in the US were hospitalized for RSV. The respiratory illness has also been associated with developing asthma.
“Almost every parent has some experience with RSV,” Ault said. “So I think it’s going to be a lot easier to talk about the risk and benefits of these interventions to parents, just because they realize what a devastating disease it is.”
HONG KONG — The head of the International Monetary Fund has urged China to fix its economic imbalances, saying the country of 1.4 billion people is too big to rely on exports for its growth.
China’s global exports have been rising while shipments to the United States have contracted after President Donald Trump hiked taxes on imports from China and many other countries. Earlier this week, Beijing reported its trade surplus for 2025 had already exceeded a record $1 trillion.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said the heavy reliance on exports risks provoking more moves by its trading partners to curb imports from China.
“(China’s) continuing to depend on export-led growth risks furthering global trade tensions,” Georgieva told a press conference on Wednesday. “China is now too big to rely on exports as a source for growth… and (it has) a large domestic market that can be a big aspiration for growth in the years to come.”
At a high-level meeting in October aimed at drawing up plans for the next five years, China’s leaders highlighted the need to boost domestic consumption. The ruling Communist Party has long sought to rebalance the economy away from heavy dependence both on exports and on massive investment in infrastructure.
But the COVID-19 pandemic intervened, along with a prolonged downturn in the real estate market that has slowed activity for that once powerful engine for growth. Meanwhile, Beijing has pushed hard to expand manufacturing in high-tech industries, struggling to rein in excessive capacity in some areas such as automaking.
Morgan Stanley recently predicted that by 2030, China’s market share in global exports could reach 16.5%, up from about 15% currently, supported by its advanced manufacturing and high-growth segments like robotics, electric vehicles and batteries.
Georgieva was visiting Beijing for an annual economic forum involving the heads of major international organizations. The IMF also was concluding its annual review of China.
Softening domestic consumption and demand in China has contributed to a weakened yuan versus the dollar and other currencies. That has made China’s exports cheaper compared with those of other countries, reinforcing trade imbalances.
The IMF said comprehensive policies are needed to encourage Chinese people to spend more.
While China’s market is huge and still growing at a nearly 5% annual pace, domestic demand has weakened as consumers cut back on spending due to job and income losses during and after the pandemic.
The years-long property downturn also has hit household wealth, crimping shoppers’ appetites for spending and sapping demand for imports, amplifying the trade imbalance.
Helping to offset the decline in exports to the U.S., China is selling more in other countries in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and Europe. That has led to complaints from China’s trading partners as its imports have failed to keep pace.
Wednesday, the EU Chamber of Commerce in China also warned its substantial trade surplus is raising worries.
The IMF’s remarks followed Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s comments to the international group of financial experts Tuesday that higher tariffs have “dealt a severe blow” to the global economy.
Le Meux, December 10, 2025. Continental has entered exclusive negotiations with ASC Investment regarding the sale of its French retail operations ContiTrade France. The intended transaction includes more than 130 company-owned BestDrive outlets, two retreading facilities, as well as the administrative functions supporting the tire and vehicle maintenance business and totaling approx. 1,200 employees. All service outlets to be sold would remain part of Continental’s BestDrive France network under a franchise contract. Staff responsible for the franchise organization and the FleetPartner organization will be integrated into the Continental marketing and sales organization in France. Both parties agreed not to disclose any further details. The intended transaction will be subject to consultation with the Comité Social et Économique (CSE) and approval by the supervisory board of Continental AG, followed by the signing of a sale and purchase agreement.
Through this transaction, BestDrive France aims to successfully complete the transformation of its business model, moving from a hybrid distribution structure to a fully franchised network in France. Once the transaction is completed, Continental will serve its individual and fleet customers in France through an extensive network of BestDrive service outlets operated by franchisees. With its strong global brand and long-standing expertise in the tire and vehicle services business, BestDrive remains fully committed to supporting its franchisees, helping them to grow their businesses and realize their full market potential.
ASC intends to operate the service outlets as an independent and agile activity, fully dedicated to providing a wide range of high-quality services to its existing and new clients via an extended product offering. Together with the current management team, ASC is committed to leverage on the existing footprint of ContiTrade France and its employee’s skillsets.
Continental aims to optimize and expand its franchise network throughout France. Access to a competitive BestDrive Private Brand product range, a future-ready digital services portfolio as well as the nationwide FleetPartner network are key elements of BestDrive’s comprehensive franchise proposition. In total, BestDrive serves more than 200 outlets throughout France.
ASC is an investment firm based in Luxembourg and Munich, focusing on pan-European corporate spin-offs, carve-outs and succession situations with improvement potential. ASC is led by a group of experienced and proven investment and industry professionals with decades of experience, pursuing a strategy of unlocking operational improvement potential in acquired companies. Since 2010 the ASC team has been investing in pan-European situations where an active and entrepreneurial-minded investor is needed. Through its network and operational expertise, ASC supports companies to revitalize its operations and build-up a sound foundation for a sustainable future.
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Investment bankers in Hong Kong have been warned over the quality of their paperwork in filings for initial public offerings after a boom in listings in the Chinese territory.
Hong Kong financial regulators sent letters to banks in the territory highlighting concerns, including failures to address regulator questions and poor descriptions of the business models of companies seeking to list. The letters also drew attention to text that was copied and pasted from previous prospectuses, according to people familiar with the warning.
The letters, sent in recent days, come as investment banks are beefing up staffing in Hong Kong to handle a revival in listings, which are principally coming from mainland Chinese companies using the territory as a base to raise offshore funds for international expansion.
Hong Kong has more than 300 companies in its IPO pipeline, having submitted paperwork to list. Listings so far this year in the territory have raised about US$34bn for companies, according to data from KPMG, making it the top IPO venue globally ahead of the NYSE, Nasdaq and National Stock Exchange of India.
This marks a huge increase from previous years after Covid-19 when Hong Kong’s capital markets stagnated.
“It’s just [about] being sloppy,” said one person who has read the letter, who added that regulators were displeased with excessive use of marketing language in documents submitted by advisers on behalf of the companies.
Two sources who had seen the letter confirmed that Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange contacted banks that work on helping companies go public in the territory with concerns about the quality of application materials.
They said banks might have received different versions of the letter, with some highlighting specific incidents concerning work submitted by the bank.
Last year, the SFC and HKEX unveiled an accelerated IPO application process for certain types of companies, including those already listed in mainland China, in a move to encourage more listings.
HKEX said it was “committed to ensuring the timely and robust review of new listing applications, and continues to proactively engage with issuers, sponsors and professional advisers to ensure the submission of comprehensive and high-quality listing materials”.
The SFC confirmed to the Financial Times that the letters were sent. News of the letters was first reported by Reuters.