SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 09, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lucidworks, the leading provider of AI-powered search and discovery, today shared data from the 2025 Cyber 5 shopping period. Their findings show record-breaking consumer search volume and longer, more conversational queries, pointing to wholesale changes in consumer behavior as AI capabilities grow.
Over the Cyber 5 timeframe, Lucidworks processed billions of product searches across its retail clients. Traffic did not simply peak on Black Friday; it began climbing well before Cyber 5. Shopper search activity culminated on Cyber Monday, highlighting the extended buying window and the growing importance of consistent e-commerce experiences beyond a single day.
“Mobile shopping and fast, multi-second buying have become the primary experience for many shoppers, and they expect search to keep up,” said Lana Klestoff, Chief Client Officer at Lucidworks. “We saw a clear shift toward longer, more natural-language queries this year, especially on mobile. When retailers can understand those conversational inputs and return fast, accurate results, shoppers stay confident and engaged throughout their journey.”
Key Lucidworks Cyber 5 Insights:
- Mobile search jumped 65% compared to 2024 for one major big-box retailer, highlighting consumers' increasing demand for an "anytime, anywhere" shopping experience
- Natural language searches increased 50% or more across retailers on average, where phrases used by shoppers were longer, with more terms typed into the search
- Millisecond-level response times drove a 23% lift in conversions, showing how even tiny performance gains matter in modern ecommerce
- In a Lucidworks Cyber 5 survey, 76% of younger shoppers said that AI-assisted shopping would “help a lot”
- AI-powered hybrid search technology (semantic + lexical) from Lucidworks ensured that even natural language one-of-a-kind queries returned high-quality results at scale
- Lucidworks processed billions of searches across its clients' e-commerce sites with 100% uptime
This year’s Cyber 5 was shaped by three emerging trends: the dominance of mobile shopping, the rise of natural-language and long-form searches, and an unprecedented volume of unique, one-off search terms that demanded high relevance even when no two shoppers typed the same thing.
Across major Lucidworks-supported retailers, natural-language searches with three or more terms increased 50% on average over last year, and some retailers saw more than 100% growth in long-form searches during the Black Friday peak. Consumers increasingly typed full questions or descriptive phrases, a behavior influenced by their everyday use of AI chat apps like ChatGPT or Gemini.
“Customers aren’t just typing ‘TV’; they’re typing longer searches such as, ‘the best 75-inch TV deal under a thousand dollars,’” added Klestoff. “Retailers that accommodate natural language, supporting multimodal searches across video or images, and deliver sub-second response times, win the sale and the loyalty.”
Lucidworks saw a dramatic rise in search uniqueness, or how often different phrases were used in search. At one retailer, over 31% of all queries were unique, usually phrased as natural sentences rather than short keyword strings. Lucidworks’ hybrid semantic + lexical technology ensured that even these one-of-a-kind queries returned high-quality results, reducing zero-result frustration and capturing long-tail revenue that traditional keyword-only systems would have missed.
Consumers have consciously embraced AI-assisted shopping and natural-language e-commerce, as shown in a follow-up survey conducted by Lucidworks on December 2. Of those U.S. shoppers polled, nearly two-thirds had used AI in some form to discover gifts during Cyber 5. The survey also indicated significant consumer demand for AI-powered search, with almost 60% saying AI could help them find the right gifts with greater confidence. Younger consumers, especially, welcome AI assistance. 76% said that AI would help “a lot.”
Lucidworks CEO Mike Sinoway echoed this shift: “Cyber 5 made one thing clear: AI-enabled discovery isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s the competitive edge. Our clients running Neural Hybrid Search experienced massive surges in traffic, saw more natural-language shopping behavior, and drove higher engagement across their catalogs, resulting in unprecedented revenue gains and profits. This is the new standard for commerce.”
Lucidworks powers search for over 50% of the U.S.’s top retail e-commerce websites. Peak query loads reached over 1,000 queries per second for some retailers. The Company delivered 100% uptime across its hosted clients during Cyber 5.
About Lucidworks
Lucidworks transforms complex data into actionable insights through AI-powered search and product discovery solutions. Clients achieve 391% ROI and are 2.5x more likely to successfully deploy AI initiatives. Global leaders like Lenovo, Morgan Stanley, and American Express rely on Lucidworks to power digital experiences that drive business results. Learn more at Lucidworks.com.
Press Contact: pr@lucidworks.com
