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People are already using the artificial intelligence agent ChatGPT for parenting and dating advice. Now, Walmart wants AI to help it shop online.
The world’s largest retailer is partnering with OpenAI to enable customers to shop and pay with the ChatGPT chatbot, Walmart announced on Tuesday, October 14th. Scheduled to roll out soon, this deployment will empower shoppers and enable them to pay using OpenAI’s instant checkout technology.
“For years, the e-commerce shopping experience has consisted of search bars and long lists of product answers. That’s about to change,” Walmart President and CEO Doug McMillon said in a news release. “Introducing multimedia, personalized, and contextual native AI experiences.”
Walmart debuted its own Sparky AI shopping assistant in June, and it looks like it will continue to be part of the new shopping experience powered by ChatGPT. “Through our partnership with Sparky, and including this important step with OpenAI, we are moving toward a more enjoyable and convenient future,” McMillon said.
How can OpenAI and ChatGPT help you shop at Walmart?
Walmart shoppers and Sam’s Club members can use AI to “plan meals, restock household essentials, or find new items. Customers just chat and buy, and Walmart takes care of the rest,” the company said in a statement.
With ChatGPT, when a shopper asks about, say, “the best running shoes under $100” or “gifts for ceramics lovers,” the chatbot suggests related products, and with Instant Checkout, which OpenAI announced on September 29, “users can tap ‘Buy,’ review order, shipping and payment details (with the ability to save payment options), and complete the purchase.”
According to OpenAI, Etsy and Shopify have been announced as the first merchants to use Instant Checkout for single-item purchases, with multi-item online carts to be introduced in the future.
“We’re excited to partner with Walmart to make everyday shopping a little easier,” Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said in a statement. “This is just one way that together we can help AI help people with their daily lives.”
shop at walmart
AI shopping could be easier, but also has potential risks
Artificial intelligence is being deployed for many purposes in retail, including AI that lets you try on clothes while shopping online, and automated shopping that automatically tallies purchases (no checkout lanes required), pioneered by Amazon in its own stores, airports, stadiums, and even Walmart’s Sam’s Club.
Three months ago, Walmart announced it would begin using AI to assist shoppers, store employees, suppliers and sellers, and software developers to improve the shopping experience for shoppers and streamline company operations.
Consumers are already embracing AI shopping agents, with 64% saying they already use, plan to use, or want to use generative AI for shopping, according to a Coresight Research survey of 400 online consumers released on October 14th. Nearly 3 in 10 (29%) said they are more likely to shop on a website powered by an AI chatbot.
Many shoppers are experimenting with AI chatbots. “Younger generations are kind of AI-first consumers, and they start with ChatGPT,” John Harmon, managing director of technology at Coresight Research, told USA TODAY.
Using AI to help you shop can help you make better purchases, Harmon says. I considered myself a skeptic until a friend helped me. “I was looking for a backpack, so I went to ChatGPT and said, ‘Show me stylish designer backpacks for men under $100,’ and it generated a page full of products, photos, recommendations, descriptions, and reviews,” he said. “What these chatbots provide is a truly enriching shopping and search experience.”
Walmart said the AI-powered shopping experience will “learn, plan and predict, moving from being reactive to being proactive, allowing customers to anticipate their needs in advance.”
Some shoppers may not want to share all the information needed to shop online with an AI bot, Harmon says. “Everything you enter into the chatbot is used to improve the model. So the chatbot remains there. Protecting your personal information is very important,” he said.
Shoppers will need to learn how to balance AI advice. “I get tons of emails every day offering 40% off jewelry from certain retailers, but I don’t buy jewelry,” Harmon said.
He said chatbots “could improve personalization by learning about you and what you like. That could save time and help people buy more things, but it could also improve the shopping experience so you don’t waste time with ads for products you don’t want.”
Contributed by: Reuters
Mike Snyder is a national trends news reporter for USA TODAY. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, and X, and email him at: blythe & @mikegsnider.bsky.social & @mikesnider & msnider@usatoday.com
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