AI-powered shopping assistants changing the way consumers shop – WJAR
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by EMILY VOLZ, NBC 10 NEWS
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(WJAR) — Shopping has evolved a lot over the last few decades.
Now, artificial intelligence shopping assistants are taking it a step further.
They’re essentially bringing the ChatGPT experience to shopping.
Take Amazon for example – instead of entering a product in the search bar and scrolling through endless options, you can click the “Rufus” button and ask their AI shopping assistant to find exactly what you're looking for.
“You can interact with an agent just like you're interacting with a store associate, as if you walked into a store and you're saying, 'Hey, what is this sofa made of? What are the alternatives for a room of this size? Do you have ones in other kinds of materials?'" explained Raj De Datta, CEO of Bloomreach.
De Datta said the technology is easy to use for consumers of all ages – though Gen Z is really leading the charge, with an estimated 41% now utilizing AI shopping assistants.
Overall, there's been a 79% percent increase in consumers using AI shopping assistants since April, according to new research from Bloomreach.
“We're going to see people just start to use ChatGPT for their shopping, rather than go to Google and go to a website in the first place, I can start to do a lot more research on ChatGPT as part of my shopping journey,” explained De Datta.
De Datta said we’ll also see more AI assistants jump in and offer assistance on websites.
“We're on the cusp of complete revolution here, where when we look back, we'll say this was around the time when shoppers started shopping pretty differently,” said De Datta.
He said AI shopping assistants can be really helpful for price shopping, too – which will likely be top of mind for many folks due to tariffs this upcoming holiday season.
De Datta says a good AI shopping assistant should be able to weed through an entire catalog of products and quickly show you what you're looking for – at the lowest price point.
