Gen Z rewrites festive gifting with AI-assisted picks, artisanal hampers and self-gifting

New Delhi: For Mumbai designer Radhika Chudasma, 24, choosing a gift can begin with feeding someone’s social media profile to a chatbot to generate specific suggestions.

“Our generation looks at personalising gifts to the extent of hyper-customisation using AI,” she said. “For instance, even for corporate gifting, we send the LinkedIn or Instagram profiles of the person we’re gifting to AI chatbots, asking them to suggest gift ideas. We also look at products that add value instead of fancy, over-decorated pieces meant only for show.”

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Chudasma underscores a growing trend among Gen Z’s to give festive gifting a personal makeover, choosing artisanal products, wellness hampers and gifts matched to recipients’ interests, while also adding themselves to the shopping list.

These young shoppers are feeding their recipients’ social profiles into AI for suggestions. This is helping support small businesses while quick commerce is getting a heft due to demand for last-minute deliveries.

A Rukam Capital–YouGov study of 4,002 respondents aged 18–29 across 18 states captures these impulses. As much as 60% of the respondents spent more during festivals, 74% buy gifts for parents and family, and around three in ten self-gift. One in four tapped AI for gift ideas and 41% used online search.

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“Nearly three in ten respondents buy gifts for themselves, showing how personal indulgence is becoming part of festive consumption alongside gifting for family and friends,” said Archana Jahagirdar, founder and managing partner at Rukam Capital, a Delhi-based early stage venture capital firm.

The study also pointed to a preference for youthful, culturally contemporary startups.

“We are seeing greater interest in healthier snacking, homegrown brands, and new interpretations of familiar Indian products, including regional specialities and fusion mithai,” said Jahagirdar.

For gifting businesses, the opportunity spans from finding new products to changing how familiar ones are selected, presented and delivered.

Getting personal

At online gifting and retail platform IGP, founder and CEO Tarun Joshi found younger customers select personalised mugs, tumblers and photo or designer cakes, with average order value of Rs 1,000–1,200.

“For Gen Z, personalisation goes beyond names and photos,” said Joshi. “It’s more about choosing gifts that reflect a person’s interests, personality and sense of style.”

Options include themed 3D caricatures, desk accessories and home décor. That distinction is also shaping briefs at The Gift Concierge, a gifting consultancy. Founder Vedika Shah said while older customers often specify quantities, budgets and standard contents, the younger clients describe the recipient.

“Gen Z briefs by mood and person: ‘my mother loves her morning tea ritual; my brother is training for a marathon’,” said Shah. “Their per-gift budgets are often smaller, but they gift fewer people and invest more thought in each one.”

The interest extends to provenance. “The question we hear most is ‘what’s the story behind this?’ They want to know who made it, where the material comes from, and whether the recipient will actually use it,” said Shah.

Delhi advocate Amani Ahuja, 24, prefers niche brands. “I try my best to get personal gifts, or their favourite food. I avoid clothing and perfumes though as they’re too personal.” What passes the test: jewellery, scarves, mugs, bags and laptop sleeves.

A familiar gift, refreshed

At online gift store FNP, chief marketing officer Avi Kumar sees traditional categories retaining their cultural pull. The Rukam survey also noted that 44% choose food, sweets and dry fruits while 39% choose cash. What changes for FNP is the presentation and combinations.

Innovative hampers like Mithai Map of India, featuring eight regional sweets and Mela Gourmet Hamper with an interactive wheel of fortune style element appeal to them. “Gen Z doesn’t necessarily reject tradition; they want to reinterpret it,” he said. “A traditional gift presented in an unexpected way can be just as exciting as an entirely new category.”

Jahagirdar mentioned contemporary Indian snacks from brands like GO DESi or coffee-led gifting from Sleepy Owl as examples of alternatives entering the festive selection. The Rukam study also found 47% planning healthy-snack purchases during festivals.

For Delhi-based industrial designer Tripti Jain, 24, wellness, aesthetics and smaller businesses featuring in her picks. “People are choosing niche and artisanal products over generalised hampers,” she said. Her festive gifts have included cracker-shaped candies made by a relative. It goes beyond a curated catalogue.

Hyderabad-based policy researcher Yana Gupta, 24, and her college friends made cards, clay models and cookies as gifts too. She, on her part, is looking to gift local sweets and other eatables like Osmania biscuits, attar and gongura pickle as Diwali gifts to friends who don’t originally belong to Hyderabad.

Something for everyone

Shah at The Gift Concierge is seeing young clients add a candle, skincare selection or handcrafted object for themselves while ordering for their parents. “Increasingly, the person on the call with us is the 22- or 26-year-old in the family, even when the parents are paying,” Shah noted. “They’re the ones researching on Instagram, shortlisting options and steering the family away from the default dry-fruit box towards something more personal or sustainable.”

Ahuja, after giving gifts to everyone on her list, likes to pamper herself with a little self-gifting.

Discovery and delivery too are evolving. Nikhil Sinha, director, Amazon Fashion, highlighted that Gen Z is showing its interest in personal style and emerging brands to gifting. Across Amazon Fashion, more than half of the customers are Gen Z, up from about 30% two years ago.

“One in three Gen Z shoppers with us use Rufus, our AI shopping assistant, to explore trends and find inspiration,” Sinha pointed out.

Joshi too is working to strengthen IGP’s visibility on AI-powered discovery and search engine platforms. “We see AI-led discovery as an emerging opportunity.”

Gupta said quick commerce is coming in handy for last-minute buys while enroute to Diwali parties.

FNP’s quick-commerce business expanded about sixfold in FY26, reflecting a broader convenience shift, leading Kumar to term younger shoppers’ preference “accessible thoughtfulness”: something distinctive and personal within reach of their budgets.

Catch-22

Sustainability is big too. As Shah mentioned Gen Z may still aspire for the traditional Diwali elements of diya, mithai and puja, but it should be made by an artisan, packaged without plastic and be relevant beyond the festival.

“Rustic aesthetics are in,” said Jain. “Even dry fruits packed in jute bags end up looking natural and premium.”

Dhruva M, a Hyderabad-based 21-year-old professional, said his generation tends to offer comparatively more gifts than what their parents did. “We feel we have to gift our peers to show we care, so we end up gifting almost everyone we know,” he said. “And the more people offer gifts, the more niche each gift gets.”

The circle meanwhile is continuing to grow. Well, as long as it’s not that one soan papdi box going around in circles during Diwali.