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Guide · AI search

How do toy brands get found when shoppers ask AI for gift ideas?

By giving AI assistants the facts they need to match a toy to a child’s age, interests and a buyer’s budget, and by earning the reviews and gift-guide coverage those assistants read. Toys were among the categories where shoppers leaned on AI most over the 2025 holidays. The brands that get named are the ones whose products are easy to describe correctly and easy to verify.

By Underneath Team Guide Updated

The short version

  1. Toys are an AI shopping category already: Adobe (opens in a new tab) says AI tools were used most in categories including video games, toys, appliances and electronics over the 2025 holidays, when US shoppers spent $8.8 billion on toys online, up 7.8%.
  2. The market is growing and fan-driven: Circana data show US toy sales grew 6% in 2025, with games and puzzles up 37% and Pokémon toys up 87% to $2.5 billion, as reported by Retail Dive (opens in a new tab).
  3. Gift timing raises the stakes: Circana says the second half of the year accounts for over 60% of annual toy sales (VMSD (opens in a new tab)).
  4. AI use for holiday shopping more than doubled: in Deloitte’s 2025 holiday survey, 33% of shoppers planned to use generative AI, up from 15% in 2024.
  5. Safety facts are non-negotiable: the Consumer Product Safety Commission requires third-party testing for all toys intended for children 12 and under, and estimated 231,700 toy-related emergency-room injuries in 2023.

Who buys toys, and when does the money arrive?

Gift givers buying for a child they may not know well, and a growing group of adults buying for themselves.

Toy buying splits into two journeys. The first is gifting: a parent, grandparent, aunt or family friend needs something right for a particular age, interest and budget, often for a birthday or the holidays. The second is self-purchase by teens and adults, the “kidults” who collect trading cards, building sets and figures.

Both are growing. Circana data, summarized by ClickPost (opens in a new tab), put full-year US retail toy sales at $30.3 billion in 2025, and dollar sales grew 17% in the first half of 2026, the strongest first half in six years. In the first half of 2025, sales to recipients aged 18 and older rose 18%, and licensed toys made up 37% of US toy sales (Spielwarenmesse (opens in a new tab), reporting Circana data).

Shoppers are also trading up. Retail Dive reports that toys priced between $30 and $69.99 grew 18% in 2025, the fastest of any price band. A higher price means more research before buying, which is exactly where AI assistants come in. Electronics shoppers show the same research habit, as our guide to consumer electronics explains.

Most toy brands do not sell most of their volume themselves. The sale usually closes at a retailer: Amazon, Walmart, Target or a specialty store. So the revenue path for a toy brand is being named in an answer, then being bought wherever the shopper prefers to buy, and then earning repeat demand, reorders and shelf space from retailers who see the sell-through. Food brands sold through the same retailers face a similar path, covered in how food ecommerce brands turn AI into orders.

Where does AI already show up in toy shopping?

In gift ideas, comparisons and deal-hunting, inside both general assistants and retailers’ own shopping assistants.

  • Toys are a heavy-use category. Adobe measured a 693.4% rise in AI-referred traffic to US retail sites over the 2025 holidays, and named toys among the categories where these tools were used most. Its top sellers that season included LEGO Icons sets, Hot Wheels sets, Bluey playsets and Fisher-Price Little People.
  • Gift ideas are a core use. In an earlier Adobe survey (opens in a new tab) of 5,000 US consumers, 35% of those using AI for shopping used it to get present ideas.
  • The platforms advertise it. When OpenAI launched shopping research (opens in a new tab) in ChatGPT, one of its own example requests was “I need a gift for my four year old niece who loves art.” Amazon (opens in a new tab) presents its Rufus assistant as ready to “compare toys, and help you pick the perfect gift.”
  • Toymakers are adopting it. In June 2025, Mattel announced a strategic collaboration with OpenAI (opens in a new tab) to build AI-powered products and experiences based on its brands, with an emphasis on privacy and safety, and to use ChatGPT Enterprise in its own operations.
  • Shoppers plan to use it for the holidays. Among Deloitte’s respondents planning to use generative AI, the top uses were comparing prices and finding deals (56%), reading summaries of reviews (47%) and generating shopping lists (33%).

Retail-wide, AI visitors are now valuable. In March 2026, AI traffic to US retailers converted 42% better than other traffic, according to Adobe data reported by TechCrunch (opens in a new tab). That figure covers all retail, not toys alone.

What do toy shoppers ask AI assistants?

Questions defined by age, interest, budget, safety and occasion, rather than by brand name.

The prompts below are illustrative, written by us to show the types of question. They are not captured from real shoppers, and we make no claim about what any assistant answers to them today.

SituationIllustrative prompt
Age and interest“Best building toy for a 6-year-old who loves space”
Budget gift“Screen-free gifts for a 3-year-old under $40”
Safety“Is this toy safe for a child under 3? Does it have small parts?”
Comparison“Is the brand-name magnetic tile set worth it over cheaper ones?”
Adult collector“Best display-worthy sets for an adult fan of Formula 1”
Trend“What toys are kids asking for this Christmas?”

Most of these questions do not mention a brand. That is the opportunity and the risk: the assistant chooses which brands to put in front of a buyer who has not decided yet. Questions about age are also safety questions, because the right age grade is the first fact a gift giver needs. Baby product brands face the same safety-first questions, covered in how baby product brands get recommended.

How does an AI recommendation turn into a toy sale?

Through a short list in the answer, a review and price check, then a purchase at a trusted retailer.

  1. Named. The assistant suggests a few toys that fit the child’s age, interests and the budget.
  2. Checked. The shopper reads reviews and compares prices. Deloitte found 50% of holiday shoppers would read online reviews before deciding, and Adobe recorded average toy discounts peaking at 29.6% off list price, so price comparison is part of the habit.
  3. Bought. The click goes to a retailer or brand site, or the purchase happens inside a retailer’s own assistant. OpenAI says ChatGPT ranks the merchants it lists by factors including availability, price, quality and whether the merchant is the maker or primary seller of the item.
  4. Repeated. A well-reviewed toy that sells through earns reorders and placement; we infer that AI-driven demand adds to that loop rather than replacing it.

Brands are also building their own assistants. Salesforce reported that companies that deployed their own AI agents, naming Funko (opens in a new tab) among its customer examples, saw a 59% higher sales growth rate over the 2025 holidays than those that did not. That is a vendor’s analysis of its own customers, not a controlled comparison.

What decides which toy an assistant names?

Specific product facts, reviews and independent coverage; the exact selection rules are not published.

Documented by the platform. OpenAI says ChatGPT’s product results (opens in a new tab) consider structured information such as price and product description from first-party and third-party providers, other third-party content, and OpenAI’s safety standards and product policies. It also says ChatGPT “may consider available options, price, reviews, and ease of use,” and that review summaries come from public websites and are not verified by OpenAI. Shopping research, OpenAI says, reads product pages directly and avoids low-quality or spammy sites.

Observed in studies.

Our inference for toys. The trust factors that likely matter most are a clear age grade and safety information, a concrete description of how the toy is played with and what it develops, strong retailer ratings, presence in independent gift guides and parenting publications, and accurate price and availability during the season.

What does a toy brand lose by being invisible to AI?

Gift sales in a short, concentrated season, when a shopper has no favorite and the assistant fills the gap.

Nobody has published how many toy sales start in an AI answer, so the loss cannot be stated precisely. What the evidence does show is concentration. More than 60% of annual toy sales fall in the second half of the year, and most gift questions name an age and an interest rather than a brand. A toy that is not on the assistant’s short list when that question is asked misses a buyer who was ready to be persuaded.

Answers also move. Across five repeats of the same question in our consistency study, just 25.2% of the brands ChatGPT named showed up every time. Being named once in a test proves little; being named reliably across assistants and weeks is the goal.

Accuracy carries its own cost. The CPSC received reports of 10 toy-related deaths among children 14 and under in 2023, including choking on a bouncy ball or a crayon and ingesting water beads. An answer that pairs a toy with the wrong age group, or repeats an outdated listing, is a risk to children and to the brand. Parents notice: in a BSM Media (opens in a new tab) survey of nearly 500 mothers, 61% said they were more likely to buy a toy that does not require an app.

How does GEO work for a toy brand?

Generative engine optimization (GEO) makes your toys easy for assistants to match, describe correctly and back with evidence.

For a toy company, that usually means:

  1. Complete, consistent product facts. Age grade, safety warnings, piece count, dimensions, batteries, what is in the box, price and availability, identical on your site, retailer listings and product feeds. Our guide to product content AI shopping assistants prefer explains why plain facts beat hype.
  2. Play value in plain words. What a child does with the toy, which skills it supports, and which interests it fits, written as facts rather than superlatives, without educational or developmental claims you cannot support.
  3. Gift-guide and review coverage. Earned placement in independent gift guides, parenting and toy publications, creator reviews and collector communities, timed well before the holiday rush.
  4. Retailer reputation. Genuine ratings and answered questions on the retailer pages where most toys are bought, since assistants may draw on them and shoppers check them.
  5. Collector and licensing clarity. For kidult lines, clear set names, edition details, release dates and the license, so assistants can answer specific fan questions accurately.
  6. Seasonal measurement. Ask a fixed set of age, interest and budget questions across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google’s AI features and retailer assistants from late summer onward, repeat them, and track how often your toys appear. See what to measure for AI visibility.

None of this can force an assistant to recommend a toy. It improves the odds that when an assistant looks, it finds accurate, trusted evidence for yours.

What doesn’t the evidence tell toy brands yet?

How many toy purchases start with an AI answer, and how retailer assistants choose which toys to show.

  • Category data is thin. Adobe names toys as a heavy AI-use category but does not publish toy-specific AI traffic or conversion figures.
  • Surveys measure plans. Deloitte and Adobe asked people what they planned or remembered doing, which can differ from behavior.
  • Retailer assistants are opaque. Amazon describes what Rufus does, not how it ranks toys.
  • Studies are adjacent. The product-ranking test used skincare and the source-overlap audit covered many product types, not toys alone.

Where should a toy brand start before the holiday season?

Start now, by asking the gift questions your buyers ask and checking which toys AI assistants name.

Pick your core age bands, interests and price points, ask them in the main assistants and in retailer assistants several times, and record which toys appear, which sources are cited, and whether your age grades, prices and availability are right. That baseline shows whether the gap is missing facts, thin review coverage or no presence in the gift guides assistants rely on.

If holiday sell-through is the number that matters, let’s talk before the season peaks. We will show where your toys appear when shoppers ask AI for gift ideas, why competing toys appear instead, and which changes are most likely to put your products in front of more gift buyers this season. Our generative engine optimization service page outlines the seasonal work behind that, including age and safety facts, gift-guide coverage and retailer reputation.

Frequently asked questions

Do shoppers really ask AI for toy gift ideas?

Yes. Adobe found 35% of US consumers who use AI for shopping used it for present ideas, and OpenAI and Amazon both promote their assistants for picking gifts, including toys.

Does an AI assistant check a toy’s age rating?

Platforms do not say how age grades are used. OpenAI says safety standards and product policies are among the factors it considers, so brands should state age grades and warnings clearly everywhere their toys are listed.

Is selling through Amazon enough to show up in AI answers?

Probably not on its own. In shopping answers studied by researchers, general assistants drew sources from review sites, communities and retailers, and ChatGPT and Gemini shared only 5.4% of the same domains.

When should toy brands start working on AI visibility for the holidays?

Months ahead. Gift guides and reviews take time to earn, and Circana says over 60% of annual toy sales happen in the second half of the year.

Sources

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