AI-Assisted Shopping the Talk of the Season

"Although AI-powered purchases are in early stages, the shopping assistants and agents rolled out by the likes of Walmart, Amazon and Google can do more than the chatbots of holidays past. The latest versions were designed to provide personalized product recommendations, track prices and to place some orders through unscripted "conversations" with customers. Those features are on top of shopping updates from AI platforms like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google Gemini."

"San Francisco software company Salesforce estimated that AI would influence $73 billion, or 22%, of all global sales in one way or another from the Tuesday before Thanksgiving through Monday after the holiday, according to Caila Schwartz, Salesforce's director of consumer insights. The figure, which stood at $60 billion a year ago, encompasses everything from a ChatGPT query to AI-supplied gift suggestions on a retailer's website, Schwartz said."

"Despite the advancements, AI's impact on holiday shopping will be "relatively limited" this year since not every shopping site has useful tools and not every shopper is willing to try them, said Brad Jashinsky, a senior retail industry analyst at information technology research and consulting firm Gartner. "The more retailers that launch these tools, the better they get, and the more that consumers get comfortable and start to seek them out," Jashinsky said. "But customer behavior takes a long time to change.""

Major retail chains and tech companies launched new or updated AI tools for the holiday shopping season to simplify gift buying and capture a larger share of online spending. AI-powered shopping assistants and agents provide personalized product recommendations, track prices and can place some orders through unscripted conversations. AI platforms like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google Gemini added shopping updates, and Google introduced an AI agent that can call local stores to check stock. Salesforce estimated AI would influence $73 billion, or 22%, of global sales during the holiday week, up from $60 billion a year earlier. AI impact is expected to remain relatively limited this year because many sites lack useful tools and customer adoption is gradual.

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