This year’s Black Friday broke records—$11.8 billion spent online in a single day—but the real story isn’t the number. It’s how we spent it.

In this episode of The Ryan Vet Show, Ryan reads his latest essay from his newsletter, Collide, exploring a fascinating new shift in consumer behavior: the moment AI quietly became the world’s most influential holiday shopper.

From AI gift-finding agents like Amazon’s Rufus and Walmart’s Sparky…
to the rise of Buy Now, Pay Later…to Gen Z and Gen Alpha shaping family purchases before they can even spell “algorithm”…this holiday season revealed something deeper: every generation is rewriting what it means to shop, give, and celebrate.

In this episode, Ryan unpacks:

📌 What Black Friday 2025 Really Revealed

• AI-driven retail traffic up 805% year over year
• Why we’re buying fewer items at higher prices
• How algorithms, not aisles, are now shaping gift discovery

📌 The Generational Pendulum of Gift-Giving

• Silent Generation thrift and homemade gifts
• Boomer abundance and “the overflowing tree” era
• Gen X caught between stuff and experiences
• Millennials pushing gifting toward memory-making
• Gen Z and Gen Alpha: the experience-first, algorithm-shaped generations

📌 Gen Z and Gen Alpha: The New Holiday Powerhouses

• Why Gen Z plans to cut budgets more than any other generation
• Why same-day delivery is becoming the norm
• Gen Alpha already influencing over $100 billion in household spending
• How targeted ads and platform algorithms shape kids’ gift requests

📌 AI + BNPL + Same-Day Delivery = The New Consumer Formula

• Why AI is now the top discovery engine for holiday shopping
• The psychological shift behind “Buy Now, Pay Later”
• Why this combination creates last-minute shoppers with long-term financial consequences

📌 Where We’re Heading Next

We’re moving into an era where:

• Experiences matter more than merchandise
• Purchasing decisions are mediated by algorithms
• Youngest generations influence spending earlier than ever
• Skepticism toward AI gift recommendations will grow
• The Great Junk Transfer is reshaping how families think about “stuff”

Holiday shopping is no longer driven by catalogs, commercials, or store aisles.
It’s driven by prompts… algorithms… and kids who swipe long before they shop.

This episode offers a fascinating look at how the holidays—and generations—are changing right before our eyes.

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Ryan Vet is a USA TODAY bestselling author, futurist, and international keynote speaker whose insights on generations, culture, and the future of work have been featured in Forbes, Financial Times, ABC, NBC, and CBS. His research helps leaders understand emerging generational patterns and anticipate societal shifts before they fully unfold.

If you want deeper research and behind-the-scenes insights on generations and the future of work, join Ryan’s weekly newsletter:
👉 https://collide.ryanvet.com

Thanksgiving used to be about turkey, travel, and tradition.
Today, it’s becoming a litmus test for where families stand and in many cases, why they’re falling apart.

In this episode, Ryan Vet breaks down the quiet generational rebellion happening around the holiday table. Drawing from his widely read COLLIDE article and insights shared at ThinQ, Ryan explores why family estrangement is rising, why Gen Z is more likely to skip family gatherings, and how psychological safety, boundaries, and “toxic family” language are redefining what it means to belong.

You’ll hear the stat from psychotherapist Matthias Barker that stunned the ThinQ audience:

From Chandler Bing’s Thanksgiving dread to Gen Z’s emotional safety checklist, this episode explains the cultural forces reshaping family, identity, and holiday traditions. It’s not about blaming any generation; it’s about understanding why the family structure is shifting and what that means for all of us this holiday season.

If you’ve ever felt tension walking into a family gathering, wondered why someone stopped showing up, or sensed that Thanksgiving “doesn’t feel the same anymore,” this conversation will connect the dots.

🔥 What You’ll Learn

• Why family estrangement is becoming mainstream
• The Generational Prism and how each generation interprets conflict
• Why Gen Z prioritizes psychological safety over tradition
• How social media therapy normalizes going “no contact”
• Why Millennials often feel caught between duty and boundaries
• The shift from “family first” to “identity first”
• How the holiday table reveals the future of the American family

📰 Want more conversations like this?

Subscribe to COLLIDE, Ryan’s weekly newsletter on generational leadership, cultural change, and the future of how we live and work:
👉 https://collide.ryanvet.com/

It’s where the deeper insights live and where every episode starts.

The United States just minted its final penny and its quiet disappearance says far more about our future than you think. In this episode of The Ryan Vet Show, Ryan reads his eye-opening article on what the end of America’s oldest coin reveals about every living generation, from the Silent Generation to Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, and even Gen Beta.

This is not just a story about money, it’s a story about how each generation redefined value, work, trust, and wealth.

You’ll discover:
• Why Boomers embraced abundance, credit, and the American Dream
• Why Gen X grew skeptical and financially cautious
• Why Millennials built the subscription-based life
• Why Gen Z sees money as instant, digital, and fluid
• How Gen Alpha will reshape work, spending, and earning
• Why Gen Beta may never touch physical cash at all

If you’re curious about the future of money, cashless economies, generational behavior, AI-driven work, or how Gen Z and Gen Alpha think about wealth, this episode is a must-listen.

About Ryan Vet

Ryan Vet is a USA TODAY bestselling author, futurist, and international keynote speaker who has spoken to audiences on five continents. His work explores generational dynamics, cultural shifts, and the forces shaping the future of work and leadership. Ryan’s insights have been featured in Forbes, Financial Times, ABC, NBC, and CBS, and his research reaches hundreds of thousands of leaders each year.

Join the Newsletter

For weekly insights on culture, generations, and the future of work, join Ryan’s newsletter at https://collide.ryanvet.com. It’s where he shares fresh research, practical leadership tools, and early access to new episodes and articles.