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Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend are one of the steepest climbs for any Shopify store. Traffic spikes, competition triples, and customers expect flawless deals at lightning speed. The good news? You don’t have to do all the heavy lifting yourself.
With AI marketing tools for Shopify merchants, you can cut through the BFCM chaos, from smarter pop-ups that grow your list to optimized send times that boost open rates and campaign assists that save hours of guesswork.
In this guide, we will walk you through 6 practical AI use-cases and tools for Shopify and show you how marketing partners like PushOwl fit into the mix.
How Are E-Commerce Stores Using Artificial Intelligence?
In a survey of over 700 e-commerce marketers and researchers, 50%-51% mentioned using artificial intelligence for creating and optimizing content.
But there is so much more you can do for your online store beyond using artificial intelligence for content-related tasks and BFCM email subject lines.
Especially during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, when you have so many time-bound marketing campaigns running simultaneously.
Simplify your BFCM campaigns with our guide, specially curated for Shopify stores
Here are 6 use-cases you can explore over the next few weeks, so that you have everything set up right in time for the end of November, when your customers are expecting a frictionless shopping experience as they
Use-case#1: AI Agents for Black Friday Cyber Monday Tasks
AI agents for e-commerce stores automate tasks and interact with your customers with minimal wait time.
If you are expecting a high volume of customer queries leading up to (and during) Black Friday weekend, know that your AI agent will be on it while you are focusing on other strategic tasks, or you know, napping because it is 3 A.M.
AI agents are more sophisticated than chatbots, so your customers will not be hit with template-y responses that do not actually address their concerns.
For Shopify brands, AI agents can understand consumer intent and make decisions accordingly, rather than replicating robotic replies that direct the customer to wait for a human to get in touch. AI agents can also help with:
- Deciding when to trigger a discount pop-up, free shipping banner or nothing at all when a visitor is on the website
- Checking inventory levels in real time
- Helping with analytics and creation of reports
Want to take it a step further? Use AI agents for your visual assets for Black Friday emails and website images.
PushOwl clients get to use magicfit’s AI agents, who study your audience, brand style, and product categories to generate high-quality images and videos.
Generate your BFCM visuals in under 3 minutes with PushOwl + magicfit
Outfit swaps for your product images? Sorted.
Meta Ad creatives? Easy.
Utilizing AI agents during Black Friday on both the backend and in customer-facing applications will help increase BFCM sales with minimal added effort.
Use-case#2: AI Shopping Assistants for Black Friday+Cyber Monday
Did you know Saks Fifth Avenue uses AI shopping agents? If one of the oldest (and most luxurious) shopping establishments delivers 1.5 million AI-led personalized product recommendations weekly, what are you waiting for?
It’s not just about product recommendations; AI shopping assistants help with peripheral decisions leading to choosing a product. For example, Sephora has a Virtual Artist, which uses AR technology to help customers try on Sephora products through the app.
AI shopping assistants will help your customers make decisions faster, which means they are more likely to get through checkout, rather than abandon the process due to decision fatigue.
Intent-based recommendations stemming from what the customer is looking for across various channels help not just increase revenue, but also train the model for future campaigns. When your AI shopping assistant is trained on customer data, it can help with behavioral analytics.
You will be able to personalize your communication with BFCM customers even after the holiday season is over. Customer retention? Win-win.
Use-case#3: AI Custom Opt-In Forms and Pop-Ups for BFCM
Pop-up forms can make or break your email list growth.
A form that feels clunky, off-brand, or disrupts browsing?
Most shoppers will close it without a second thought.
That is where PushOwl’s AI-powered opt-in pop-ups come in.
Instead of wrestling with manual form builders while BFCM deliverables pile up, you can use Shopify-specific AI pop-ups and AI-powered opt-in forms to capture leads.
When used correctly, AI-customized opt-in forms and pop-ups will sound natural and will be in tune with your brand’s voice. You can also customize various aspects of the popups, including the design and how it appears on the website (and when).
Step up the quality of your opt-in forms
During BFCM, shoppers are in a hurry, and so are you. These AI-powered pop-ups and forms will ensure neither of you will slow down. More subscribers and fewer bounces at half the effort.
Use-case#4: AI Assist for Drafting BFCM Campaigns
We don’t have to tell you this, but…BFCM weekend is chaotic. You are juggling flash sales, abandoned cart reminders, and last-minute tweaks to the website banner and product pages.
Brainstorming creative campaign titles and other campaign copy for each customer segment across daily deals pre-BFCM, during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and after. Phew, that is exhausting!
Put our AI Assist tool to work on your Black Friday campaigns
How about a little AI helper to assist you?
With our AI Assist tool, PushOwl clients do not have to worry about the grunt work that comes with Black Friday campaigns. Think of it as AI campaign automation built for BFCM marketing campaigns.
When they create a new campaign, the AI Assist tool helps with:
- Autocomplete: Start typing a campaign title or message, and let the AI Assist tool finish your thought. No more writer’s block when you are staring at the Cyber Monday countdown timer.
- Improve Writing: Draft your campaign copy, and then click on the ‘Improve Writing’ option to sharpen the offering and tone. Your thoughts are packaged in words that will persuade your shopper.
Since these features work across both one-time campaigns and automations, you can beef up your BFCM calendar in advance, and let AI keep the messaging consistent while you focus on strategy.
Use-case#5: AI-Optimized Send Times for BFCM Campaigns
“Right offer at the right time” is more important during Black Friday and Cyber Monday than at any other time. If your daily deal lands when your subscribers are asleep or busy, it will get lost in the daily noise of notifications a shopper experiences.
Add another layer of nuance to your omnichannel marketing strategy by optimizing your send time. Instead of blasting your entire list all day, tailor the send time for each customer depending on when they are more active based on past behavior.
You are targeting each customer at the time they are most primed to shop.
Activate Smart Delivery to personalize send time for each customer
How does this work?
Machine learning algorithms track when each subscriber is online and most likely to engage, and then the tool schedules the notification accordingly.
One customer might check their phone in the morning before work, while another goes on a post-work retail therapy binge before bed. Optimizing send time helps you match each customer’s pattern.
So when a customer is being inundated with BFCM deals, offers, and reminders all day from your competitor, your alerts are landing in their inbox when they are most likely to act.
Better timing = better engagement = better ROI
You do not have to run separate tests for time zones or audience segments. Let PushOwl’s AI smart sending tool do the heavy lifting.
Use-case#6: AI Email Generator for Black Friday Communication
And finally, the most common AI use-case, but with a twist.
To avoid writing an endless amount of marketing emails from scratch for various automations, Shopify marketers rely on email templates and AI tools.
But we don’t mean using plain old ChatGPT for marketing copy (although with the right prompts, that can be super helpful).
PushOwl has a sophisticated custom GPT (or AI email generator) for Shopify clients. You can generate persuasive marketing emails for your Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns in four simple steps:
- Copy your product URL
- Paste it into PushOwl’s AI tool
- Select from the multiple email variations the tool offers, based on different tones, CTAs, and writing styles, complete with other standard brand details and logos
- Copy your chosen template into the Email Editor powered by Brevo
….and you are done!
Test drive PushOwl’s CustomGPT to write emails in under 5 minutes!
In 2024, over 76 million customers purchased from Shopify brands during Black Friday + Cyber Monday weekend.
That is A LOT of email-writing.
Use AI to lighten the burden.
AI-Related Privacy Issues During Black Friday
AI can speed up your BFCM prep, but there is one thing you cannot automate away: Consumer sentiments towards AI.
Here is what Sinch’s State of Customer Communications 2025 Report says:
- Only 32% of customers feel comfortable sharing personal preferences with an AI assistant
- 48% of customers say AI will simplify their BFCM shopping
- 53% want AI-powered order tracking
Translation? Shoppers are open to AI, but they remain cautious. Customers will happily use tools that help them get to checkout or track deliveries, but they will hesitate if they feel their data is being used carelessly.
Therefore, brands must deliver secure and transparent shopping experiences that involve AI interactions and the use of customer data through AI tools.
Concerns around privacy, if left unaddressed, can breach the one currency that is invaluable in the e-commerce world: consumer trust. For Shopify brands, AI-powered personalization for BFCM must be tied to compliance. This means:
- Prioritizing transparency by telling shoppers when and how the Shopify store is using AI across the buying journey
- Collecting only the data you need, and anonymizing wherever possible
- Offering clear and visible opt-outs for AI-driven recommendations
- Double-checking data privacy regulations before scaling customer-facing AI tools
- Using AI with proper cybersecurity safeguards that protect from breaches.
Remember, a flashy AI tool may boost clicks, but if customers feel spied on, they will not stick around after Cyber Monday. PushOwl’s AI-powered features are built with Shopify compliance in mind, so you do not have to worry about security gaps.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday vs. PushOwl and AI: You Win!
BFCM will always be a sprint.
The goal isn’t to out-AI your competitors.
It is to stay sharp while using AI for e-commerce stores and stay visible by incorporating AI tools across the buying journey, so that you can keep carts moving. PushOwl makes that sprint a little less frantic and a lot more rewarding with unique AI applications (AI pop-ups to AI email generators) for Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing. Test some of these for your e-commerce store for free today.
