How to use AI to drive holiday revenue, optimize inventory & win customers

“Write one blog post or newsletter and use AI to spin it into multiple formats (Instagram carousel, short video script, or flyer text).” —ChatGPT

Let’s be real: the best thing you can do for your time and sanity this holiday season is get that marketing email out the door. And who better to take care of drafting your holiday email, newsletter, and social media posts than AI? (Always make sure you use human oversight to review all copy and outputs from both GenAI and agentic AI.)

What comes out may not be exactly what you’d come up with, but it’s often easier to revise a working draft than it is to build something new from the ground up. So why not see what GenAI comes up with and go from there? According to that 2025 Intuit survey, 46% of business owners who used AI said it improved the effectiveness of their marketing. 

Being someone who’s always dreamed of opening my own independent bookstore, I asked ChatGPT to create a short email campaign to market my hypothetical shop during the holidays. Here’s what the AI came up with:

First, a few things to note. You’ll notice that my request is very specific. I’ve given ChatGPT a lot of details, including:

• Location
• Desired tone
• Timing
• Events/deals to include

Since this is a prompt you’ll probably run fairly often, you can use GenAI features like gems in Google Gemini and custom GPTs in ChatGPT to set this up as a recurring task in your AI tool.

Grammarly suggests users “provide ChatGPT with enough details up front so it understands your specific circumstances and knows enough to meet your demands.” Most of the time, the first result won’t be exactly right. The good news is that generative AI tools like ChatGPT make it easy to iterate. You don’t need to be shy or apologetic with your feedback, either! Tell it what you want fixed in the next draft. Upload an example of the kind of product you’d like the AI to create. Show it your best email or flyer (in ChatGPT, you can do so by selecting the + button on the lefthand side of the search bar). Mimicking what’s already out there is what generative AI like ChatGPT does best. 

Here’s the first email ChatGPT came up with for my three-email holiday marketing campaign:

The next step (assuming I like what I see or have enough of a draft that I feel comfortable revising a little on my own) is to set up my campaign in Intuit Mailchimp. There, I’d be able to set my delivery schedule, add personalization, and maybe set up a link in the email taking readers to my store’s online gift guide. I could even set up texts and social media posts. Speaking of which… 

ChatGPT asked if I’d like it to come up with some social media posts that would correspond to the emails it generated. Helpful, right? Here’s an example:

Short, sweet, and perfectly adequate. If it were me, I’d toss in a picture of my shop’s current seasonal display, or maybe one of Bootsy the bookstore cat eyeballing a plate of free donuts. 

The last piece of the AI puzzle is checking out the insights. Because I used Intuit Mailchimp to send out my emails and social media posts, I now have incredibly detailed analytics and reporting. Intuit’s AI-powered platform can make suggestions for optimizing my content in the future, so next year’s holiday marketing campaign will be even more successful.

“AI tools can analyze past sales, seasonality, and external factors (like holidays or weather) to predict what you’ll need and when.” —ChatGPT

Here’s where Intuit QuickBooks comes in. If you’re on Intuit Enterprise Suite or QuickBooks Online, you already have all the tools you need to pull reports from previous years. Integrations with platforms like Shopify or Etsy make inventory tracking easier than ever. And as for making decisions about future inventory and operations, that’s where Intuit’s AI really shines.

2 ways to use QuickBooks to determine your stock levels for the holidays:

1. Analyze historical holiday sales data. Run the "Inventory Valuation Summary" and "Sales by Product/Service Detail" reports to find your best-selling products during previous holiday seasons.
2. Analyze the past year's data and look for monthly or quarterly sales trends. Pay attention to how demand for specific items may fluctuate in September, October, and November as holiday shopping begins earlier.

Intuit QuickBooks can track products, the cost of goods, and send you notifications when inventory is low. Some QuickBooks users can even go a step further with AI-powered profit and loss insights and AI-powered balance sheet insights (both of which are currently in Beta).

Here are some other ways you can use AI to optimize your operations: 

1. Staff scheduling: Use AI to predict peak times and help you staff your business appropriately to meet demand.
2. Process automation: Automate routine tasks like sending order confirmations, updating stock counts, or syncing across platforms.
3. Supplier management: AI may be able to alert you to slow suppliers or suggest alternate vendors based on price, delivery speed, or reliability.
4. Cost monitoring: Use AI to scan expenses and flag unusual charges or areas where you’re overspending (e.g., utilities, packaging, shipping, etc.).
5. Customer insights: Use AI to track buying patterns and anticipate requests so popular items are always in stock.

According to the Intuit survey, 41% of AI users said that doing so reduced their operating costs. With odds like that, it’s certainly worth a try.

“AI can really shine when it comes to creating a smoother, more personalized experience for your customers, and the holiday season is the perfect time to leverage it.” —ChatGPT

Your employees are your business’s most valuable asset, and their interactions with your clients and customers are paramount to your business’s success. But if you’re grappling with underemployment or know that the holiday rush may impact your ability to give customers the personal shopping experience they’ve come to love and expect, AI may be able to help. 

First, let’s look at staffing. AI can help with hiring seasonal employees. Use tools like ChatGPT or Google Gemini to create the perfect job description. Once you’ve selected your new hire, use QuickBooks Payroll to get them onboarded. Intuit AI agents stay up-to-date with federal, state, and local payroll tax regulations so you and your team can focus on getting your new hire trained and out on the floor as quickly as possible. 

Second, AI makes a great digital customer service tool. Among business owners who use AI, 40% said it’s improved their customer service. Here’s what that might look like:

1. Setting up a chatbot on your website to answer basic questions
2. Turning on a feature that recommends products related to what your customer has in their cart or has purchased in the past
3. Generating SEO-friendly product descriptions so customers can more easily find your site and the products they want (Squarespace does this).

AI can do a lot, and the more you give it, the better a job it’ll do with curating its suggestions. That said, folks who are new to AI tools should consider a few basic dos and don’ts to avoid putting customer information at risk:

• DO be transparent. Let customers know when AI is being used, even if it’s just a chatbot.
• DON’T put sensitive customer information into public AI tools. Collect only what you need, store that information in encrypted systems, and never pass that data on to OpenAI tools like ChatGPT. Sharing raw or inadequately protected customer information could violate privacy laws, erode customer trust, and expose your business to security breaches. Instead, use trusted third-party AI tools (such as what you’ll find in QuickBooks) to analyze customer data in a more controlled environment.
• DO regularly update passwords and permissions for any staff using AI tools.
• DON’T assume AI is always right. Even robots make mistakes.
• DO offer a human option, such as the opportunity to email a store representative or talk to someone over the phone, with any customer-facing AI solution. AI should support, not replace, human care.
• DON’T make your AI overly familiar. Suggesting similar items to what’s in someone’s cart is helpful. Making suggestions based on that person’s entire Google history is creepy. 

Generative and agentic AI don’t have to be intimidating, nor do they need to take over the heart of what makes your small business unique. Think of it as a support system—one that keeps the backend running smoothly so you and your team can focus on what you do best: creating memorable customer experiences. Whether it’s drafting holiday marketing content, helping you plan staff schedules, or identifying which products are most likely to sell out, AI can save you time and reduce stress during the busiest season of the year.

Tools like Intuit QuickBooks make this even easier by putting AI insights directly into your everyday operations. From tracking inventory levels to analyzing past sales trends and forecasting demand, QuickBooks gives you the data you need to make smarter decisions, faster. Pair that with AI-driven customer engagement and streamlined payroll, and you’ll be well positioned to work smarter, not harder this holiday season. After all, the more you can rely on AI to handle the repetitive tasks, the more time you’ll have to connect with customers, grow your business, and enjoy the holidays yourself.