Saturday, December 7, 2024

Can AI Chatbots Make Your Holiday Shopping Easier?

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Tired of thinking about what gifts to get everyone this year? Artificial intelligence chatbots might help, but don't expect them to do all the work or always give you the right answers.

Anyone scouring the internet for Cyber Monday deals likely encountered more conversational iterations of the chatbots that some retailers and e-commerce sites have built to provide shoppers with enhanced customer service.

Some companies have integrated models infused with newer generative AI technologies, allowing shoppers to seek advice by asking naturally phrased questions like "What's the best wireless speaker?"

Retailers hope consumers use these chatbots, which are typically called shopping assistants, as virtual companions that help them discover or compare products. Prior chatbots were mostly used for task-oriented functions such as helping customers track down online orders or return ones that didn't meet expectations.

And Rufus, which is available for holiday shoppers in the U.S. and some other countries, is not the only shopping assistant out there. A select number of Walmart shoppers will have access this year to a similar chatbot the nation's largest retailer is testing in a few product categories, including toys and electronics.

Perplexity AI added something new to the AI chat-shopping world last month by rolling out a feature on its AI-powered search engine that enables users to ask a question like "What's the best women's leather boots?" and then receive specific product results that the San Francisco-based company says are not sponsored.

"It has been adopted at pretty incredible scale," Mike Mallazzo, an analyst and writer at retail research media company Future Commerce, said.

Retailers with websites and e-commerce companies started paying more attention to chatbots when use of ChatGPT , an artificial intelligence text chatbot made by the company OpenAI, went mainstream in late 2022, sparking public and business interest in the generative AI technology that powers the tool.

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