Jill Standish, Senior Managing Director and Global Retail Lead at Accenture, surveys the challenging environment for retailers and consumers. She speaks on "Bloomberg Surveillance."

Recent research shows that nine out of ten consumers anticipate spending more during the upcoming holiday season, primarily because of increased prices rather than greater purchasing power. Despite this expected rise in spending, consumer confidence remains subdued, leading to heightened stress and decision fatigue among shoppers.

Retailers are responding by leveraging recommendation tools, including generative AI and chatbots, to assist customers in making choices and to reduce abandoned shopping carts. With three-quarters of consumers now turning to AI platforms like ChatGPT and Meta for shopping advice, retailers are encouraged to ensure their products and information are easily accessible to these technologies.

Shoppers enter holiday season with caution

And Jill, I mean, you guys have done a lot of research here about what your expectations are for this holiday season. What are those expectations? Well, first of all, I'm hearing that 9 out of 10 are saying they're going to spend more. But that's a little bit tricky here because, honestly, that's because prices are higher. So there's a little bit of, you know, prices are higher, consumers said they're going to spend, but their confidence is a little bit down. So how does a retailer respond, particularly on Black Friday, Jill? You know, there's so many choices out there. I think a couple of things that really make a big difference. I like to say that this is the era of recommendations. It's interesting that 85 percent of consumers said they're so stressed out about so many choices that they're going to abandon their cart. So what can a retailer do? There's a lot of tools out there like Gen AI that can say, hey, listen, let me give you some advice. So it's the era of recommendations, whether that's online or even store staff. What should I buy you for Christmas? Get that recommendation engine going. But Jill, the recommendation engine, the generative AI chatbot, does it need to be owned by the individual retailer or do they start to feed into chat GPT a little bit more? Yeah, you know what? There's three quarters of consumers are saying that they're going to tools like chat GPT, like you said, or Meta. So what a retailer needs to do is be found by these tools. So allowing these tools to actually find you, find your website, find your prices, find your inventory and then recommend back. So that top of funnel doesn't need to come from the traditional search. Now it needs to come from this Gen AI search or recommendation engine.

The son of filmmaker Rob Reiner was arrested on homicide charges after the director of beloved movies like "When Harry Met Sally ..." and his wife were found dead in their Los Angeles home, a police official said on Monday.

Los Angeles

Rob Reiner's son arrested after director and wife found dead

A jury found Brian Walshe guilty of first-degree murder in the death of his wife Ana on New Year's Day in 2023 in their Massachusetts home. Legal analyst Jennifer Roman joins with more details.

Boston

Brian Walshe found guilty of first-degree murder in wife's death

Hong Kong's High Court on Monday (December 15) found pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai guilty of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and to publish seditious material under a China-imposed national security law that could see him jailed for life.

Hong Kong Island

Hong Kong court finds Jimmy Lai guilty in landmark security trial

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. negotiators are meeting in Berlin. As the U.S. grows increasingly pressed to end the four-year war, the peace negotiations continue, with territorial concessions to Russia remaining the "sticking point" for Ukraine.

Berlin

Ukraine Invasion

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Police have released a person of interest who was detained in a shooting at Brown University. Two students were killed and at least nine others were injured in the Saturday attack. Tom Hanson spoke with students about the shooting.

Providence

Police release person of interest in shooting at Brown University

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy proposed abandoning NATO ambitions in exchange for Western security guarantees during peace talks in Berlin. The move marks a major shift as Kyiv seeks to end the war with Russia without ceding territory.

Ukraine offers to drop NATO bid at Berlin peace talks

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Brentwood

Director Rob Reiner and his wife found dead in their L.A. home

Far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast wins Chile's presidential run-off, after defeating his leftist opponent.

Santiago

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The person of interest authorities took into custody in connection with the shooting at Brown University has been identified as Benjamin Erickson. He's a 24 year old, originally from Wisconsin.

Person of interest identified in Brown University shooting

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Bondi Beach

Father and son behind Bondi mass shooting, Australian police say

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Council of the City of Sydney

Israel calls Bondi shooting attack on Jews, urges action on antisemitism

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Gunmen kill several at Jewish gathering in Sydney's Bondi Beach

Providence police have detained a "person of interest" in connection with the Brown University shooting that left two students dead and another nine people wounded, as the Ivy League school said it had lifted a shelter-in-place order for its campus in Rhode Island.

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Minsk

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Washington was still under a state of emergency on Saturday after torrential rains swamped communities. Plus, snow and dangerous cold are falling on some in the Midwest and on the East Coast. Nicole Valdes has more from Washington state.

Deming

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China's plans for a massive new embassy in the British capital were delayed until January. Construction plans have proven controversial, with some raising espionage concerns. Ramy Inocencio has more from London.

London

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A United Airlines jetliner lost one of its engines during liftoff from Washington's Dulles Airport bound for Tokyo.

Tokyo

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Thailand says there is no ceasefire with Cambodia, and its military will continue fighting until it faces no further threat. That's despite the US president's earlier announcement that both sides had agreed to stop their attacks. Villages along the border are largely empty, except for a handful of volunteer security guards.

Phnom Penh

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U.S President Donald Trump has threatened potential land strikes on Venezuela to target an illegal narcotics trade. Trump says the drugs are arriving on U.S shores and that President Nicolas Maduro is behind it. Maduro has denied the claim.

Caracas

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King Charles III, who shared his cancer diagnosis with the world in February 2024, announced Friday that he would be scaling back his treatment after his doctors have seen success. The monarch also pushed for people to get early screenings, saying, "Early diagnosis quite simply saves lives."

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Belarus has freed more than 100 political prisoners, including a Nobel Peace Prize winner, in exchange for sanction relief on Belarusian potash, a U.S. statement said on Saturday.

Belarus releases political prisoners as U.S. lifts some sanctions

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he visited troops fending off Russian advances near the embattled city of Kupiansk that Moscow claimed to have captured last month, which Kyiv denies.

Kup'yans'k

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Brussels

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U.S. House Democrats released new images from the estate of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that feature U.S. President Donald Trump and other high-profile people previously linked to Epstein.

Washington

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For the first time, Amnesty International has accused Hamas and its allies of committing crimes against humanity, following an investigation into the 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel. The organization found that 1,221 people were killed and said the mass killing of civilians amounted to extermination.

Jerusalem

Middle East Conflict

Amnesty accuses Hamas of 'crimes against humanity' for Oct. 7 attack

The “Architects of AI” were named Time's person of the year Thursday, with the magazine citing 2025 as when the potential of artificial intelligence “roared into view” with no turning back.

Rise of AI

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Message board website Reddit filed a lawsuit on Friday (December 12) asking Australia's High Court to overturn the country's social media ban for people under 16 as well as its inclusion in it, calling the law an infringement of free political expression.

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As tensions rise with Venezuela, U.S. President Donald Trump said land operations could start "pretty soon." Sources tell CBS News the administration is also planning more tanker seizures.

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Breakdown