- Walmart has introduced AI-powered instant checkout via ChatGPT
- The feature allows you to shop at Walmart through ChatGPT conversations
- Users can talk to the AI about meals they could make, new products, and products they need more of.
ChatGPT has started helping Walmart shoppers find and purchase items through conversation. OpenAI and the retail giant announced that customers can start making purchases through ChatGPT using a new feature called Instant Checkout, completely bypassing the typical website navigation process.
Companies present Instant Pay as ideal for those who need to buy things for a meal quickly or who notice they have run out of something like paper towels. Instead of visiting Walmart’s website, they will be able to tell ChatGPT what they need, with the option to ask for suggestions on what products to buy, what food to prepare, and the ingredients needed. The AI uses Walmart’s catalog to confirm the order, and the Instant Checkout system, which ChatGPT already uses to enable purchases on Shopify and Instacart, will handle payment.
This “agent commerce,” as the announcement calls it, is supposed to attract people looking to leverage ChatGPT’s prowess to influence Walmart’s own logistics and pricing settings. It could mark a big step forward in the way AI is changing people’s shopping habits.
“We’re excited to partner with Walmart to make everyday shopping a little easier,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement. “It’s just one of the ways AI will help people every day through our work together.”
Instant Checkout is one way in which OpenAI is trying to make ChatGPT more of an e-commerce utility. Works with Apple Pay, Google Pay, and credit cards through Stripe. However, until now it has mainly been used to place orders with smaller merchants and digital stores. Walmart is by far its biggest partner to date.
The partnership also pushes Walmart further into the AI arms race against rivals like Amazon and Google. Amazon has quite a few AI tools aimed at improving the shopping experience, from Alexa voice commands to its AI assistant, Rufus. Meanwhile, Google offers AI not only to suggest purchases but also to let you try on clothes virtually.
Walmart already uses AI in several capacities, including for customer service. Sparky, the in-house AI assistant, helps with product recommendations and tracks inventory to help reduce wait times when people ask for help. The ChatGPT integration makes the connection between Walmart data and the customer even shorter. You can tell ChatGPT you’re running out of school snacks and receive a curated list of kids’ groceries and order them all in seconds.
“For many years, e-commerce shopping experiences have consisted of a search bar and a long list of answers to items. That’s about to change,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said in a statement.
“A native AI experience that is multimedia, personalized and contextual is coming. We are moving towards that more enjoyable and convenient future with Sparky and through partnerships including this important step with OpenAI.”
However, don’t expect Walmart or other stores to lose their websites and screen-based shopping approach tomorrow. However, if conversational commerce experiments like this prove successful, they could at least join the list of online shopping methods. Conversational shopping portals could become as common as Amazon and Google stores, with AI-powered answers built in.
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