The men delegated the purchase of gifts on March 8 to AI agents

On the eve of International Women's Day, there was an almost twofold increase in suspicious cyber activity on the websites of beauty retailers. This was reported to Izvestia on March 5 by Servicepipe.

It is clarified that the reason was the chaotic behavior of men who actively chose gifts. In particular, the activity of AI assistants on the websites of beauty industry companies has increased 3.5 times. This suggests that more and more men are trusting AI to buy gifts for their loved ones, analysts say.

At the same time, there was abnormal traffic on beauty marketplace websites at the end of February 2026: users randomly added goods to baskets and deleted them, randomly switched between categories, and formed sets of incompatible products. Such behavioral anomalies are recorded before March 8 every year — gifts are chosen.

"If an advanced behavioral analysis is configured on the service, any deviation will be recorded as an anomaly, which means it is a potential threat. An uncharacteristic number, frequency, sequence, or groups of requests within a user session may indicate that we are dealing with automation," explained Anton Chemyakin, head of Servicepipe Analytics.

The company noted that usually a cosmetics customer knows what she needs: a specific shade of lipstick or a familiar cream. Men, on the other hand, when faced with the assortment of a beauty store, commit impulsive and not always logical actions, which can be recorded by the system as bot activity if only behavioral factors are used to identify illegitimate automation.

In addition, this year men are increasingly turning to AI assistants when choosing cosmetics. AI assistants visit beauty retailers' websites in real time, collect information about products, compare characteristics and prices, and select the best options. The number of such requests will only grow, which creates additional load on the servers.

"That is why the behavioral factor should not act as the only level of protection — both reputational and technical analysis are important," Chemyakin said.

As the customers from the beauty industry segment surveyed by Servicepipe noted, on the eve of March 8, the average "male" check amounted to 3 thousand rubles. The most popular gifts were gift sets, perfumes and care cosmetics. In the category of care cosmetics, moisturizing creams for hands and face, as well as ready-made shampoo and shower gel kits, were the leaders.

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Fashion expert, art director of the French brand Michel Katana Natalia Semenova said on the same day that on the eve of the holidays, men often make the same mistakes when choosing gifts, focusing on the appearance or making a decision at the last moment. According to the expert, one of the common mistakes is to focus solely on the visual appeal of the gift. Men often choose spectacular things without thinking about how appropriate they will be in everyday life.

Yuri Semichastnov, head of courier services at the Flowwow flower and gift marketplace, said that the greatest rush to buy flowers falls on the two days before the holiday — March 6 and 7. This year, it is expected that demand on these days will grow 5-10 times compared to the average number of purchases in other periods. According to the expert, the optimal time for placing an order is from March 1 to March 3. Flower shops receive new supplies and understand which bouquets will already be collected for the holiday. This allows you to distribute the workload among employees.

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