Attention Walmart shoppers: ChatGPT will do your shopping for you
Walmart has partnered with OpenAI to allow customers to purchase products and pay directly from ChatGPT.
The world’s largest retailer’s adoption of “AI-driven” shopping is paving the way for a new era using AI-powered chatbots as agents for purchases. The idea is that users will no longer need to click and navigate through a shopping website or app, but will instead be able to ask a chatbot to purchase products on their behalf.
“For many years now, online shopping experiences have consisted of a search bar and a long list of item answers. That’s about to change,” said Doug McMillon, Walmart’s chief executive officer. “A coming multimedia, personalized and contextual native AI experience is coming. »
Shoppers can now ask ChatGPT to plan meals, restock household items, or discover new items. The chatbot selects products where users can tap “Buy” to confirm their items, shipping and payment details. This one-click purchase feature, known as “instant checkout,” is enabled through OpenAI’s partnership with payments company Stripe.
“We’re excited to partner with Walmart to make everyday shopping a little easier,” Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, said in a statement.
OpenAI’s partnership with Walmart demonstrates how the company is leveraging its technology to expand its presence and build a technology ecosystem that even the world’s largest companies feel compelled to join. It leverages its large user base for business and financial assistants, builds its own devices, launches a TikTok-like social media app and designs its own chipsets to power data centers.
The OpenAI partnership will build on Walmart’s ongoing AI efforts. It already has an in-app AI shopping assistant called Sparky that recommends products and summarizes buyer reviews.
Last year, Amazon launched its own in-app shopping assistant, called Rufus.
ChatGPT has 800 million weekly active users and has already reshaped consumer behavior, with many using it as a shopping consultant. The chatbot can learn from its interactions with each person, which will allow it to understand, plan and predict what customers want, the companies said.
However, Americans remain skeptical of AI business assistants, according to a YouGov survey conducted earlier this year.
For OpenAI, this is another step toward making its powerful models useful to the mass market and also opening avenues for revenue generation by moving from a passive responder and responder to a proactive purchasing agent who, in theory, could earn commissions or fees for its services.
Late last month, OpenAI introduces a common standard for any brand to integrate into ChatGPT. Etsy and Shopify were the two pilot merchants that partnered with OpenAI to test and integrate purchases into ChatGPT.
Merchants pay a small fee on purchases made, but the service is free for users.
OpenAI has stated that the service does not influence the results of ChatGPT products. When ranking multiple merchants, ChatGPT considers factors like quality, availability, price, and whether Stripe Instant Checkout is enabled.
