AI shopping assistant for product discovery and recommendations

Carrefour integrated its grocery offering and services directly into the ChatGPT interface, announced on 26 March 2026, so that ChatGPT users in France can complete their whole shopping process in a conversation with the assistant. Carrefour presents the launch as agentic ecommerce and as part of the operational rollout of its "Carrefour 2030" strategic plan.

Instacart's Cart Assistant builds a grocery cart from a conversation, a photo of a list or a prompt such as "easy weeknight dinners for four", using live store inventory and the shopper's order history. In May 2026 it was in testing and available to about 25% of U.S. customers, with a wider rollout to U.S. and Canadian customers announced in June. In its second quarter 2026 results release Instacart said orders placed with the assistant are, on average, larger than its $115 average order value, and that it was still in pilot. Retailers can license a white label version for their own sites.

Michaels, the US arts and crafts retailer, launched Ask Mike in May 2026 and announced it on July 21, 2026. The assistant runs on its website and in its iOS and Android apps, is built on Google Cloud's Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience, and turns project requests such as a birthday party into product and idea suggestions. Michaels' president and chief customer officer says shoppers who engage with it convert at more than double the rate of shoppers who use traditional search. The company has not published the underlying conversion rates or group sizes.

Pick n Pay added Penny, a conversational shopping assistant built on Google's Gemini models, to its asap! on demand delivery app. Shoppers describe what they want by voice note, text or a photo, such as a handwritten list or a recipe, and Penny assembles a basket, suggests recipes and ingredient substitutions and helps with meal planning. Penny does not place the order or take payment itself: once the basket is ready, the shopper is handed to the app's normal checkout to pick a delivery slot and pay. Retail executive Enrico Ferigolli said Pick n Pay tested several large language models before choosing Gemini on accuracy, speed and cost.

The Home Depot built Magic Apron, an AI assistant that answers product questions, recommends the tools and supplies a project needs and helps shoppers find items in the store, reachable by text, voice dictation or a photo and in multiple languages through the mobile app's Store Mode or a QR code on in store signage. In August 2026 it expanded Magic Apron with store specific knowledge to all of its more than 2,000 US stores, on top of an assistant that was already fielding millions of questions a month. The organization reports positive pilot feedback on finding products faster and buying with more confidence, but discloses no measured figure.

Lowe's launched Mylow in March 2025, a customer facing virtual advisor built with OpenAI that answers home improvement questions, gives project steps and links the project to product discovery, with recommendations that can be refined by budget and zip code. In May 2025 it rolled out Mylow Companion, built on the same foundation, to associates in more than 1,700 stores, so staff on the floor get the same product, project and inventory answers. On its third quarter 2025 earnings call, Lowe's said customers who engage with Mylow convert at more than double the rate of those who do not, a comparison between self selected groups rather than a controlled test.

Walmart launched Sparky in June 2025 as an "Ask Sparky" button in its app across all categories. Sparky answers product questions, compares options, synthesizes reviews and recommends products for an occasion, and Walmart describes a roadmap toward reordering, service booking and multimodal input. It joins Walmart's earlier generative AI features for search, review summaries, product descriptions and comparisons. No outcome figures were published on the launch page.

Amazon launched Rufus in 2024 as a generative AI shopping assistant in its app, trained on the product catalog, customer reviews, community questions and answers and information from the web, to answer product questions, compare items and recommend products for an occasion or need. In 2026 it combined Rufus and Alexa+ into Alexa for Shopping, an agentic assistant that adds price history, price alerts and automated buying. Amazon reports over 350 million customers in twelve months, and says US customers who use Alexa for Shopping spend on average over 40% more per order than those who do not, a comparison between self selected groups rather than a controlled test.

Zalando opened a beta of its assistant to logged in customers in Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom and Ireland by November 2023, after testing it internally and with selected customers. Since October 2024 it gives logged in customers fashion advice in their local language across all 25 Zalando markets, using Zalando's own models and OpenAI's large language models.

It interprets context such as occasion, location and weather ("what should I wear to my dad's 60th birthday in November in Barcelona?"), and an update in March 2025 connected it to customer accounts and shopping history and made it aware of the page the customer is browsing. In a pilot of the personalized version Zalando observed 40% more high value interactions, such as likes and add to cart actions.

Dutch fashion retailer Omoda built an AI stylist on Gemini models and Vertex AI that gives shoppers personalized outfit recommendations through a natural language conversation. Google Cloud reports that customers who use the AI stylist convert at a noticeably higher rate than the average shopper.

Albertsons Companies was the first retailer to put Google Cloud's Conversational Commerce agent live, in its Ask AI tool reached from the search bar of its banner apps (Albertsons, Safeway, Vons, Jewel-Osco, Shaw's, ACME and Tom Thumb). The agent, built on Vertex AI and Gemini, asks clarifying questions such as sweet versus salty, compares products and suggests items that pair well. Google Cloud reports early results: customers often add one or more extra items to their cart, and more than 85% of conversions began with open ended or exploratory questions. No basket size or revenue figures are disclosed.

In July 2025 Jumia Egypt announced with Intella, an Arabic AI company, that shoppers can browse and order products by voice using the Ziila assistant in the Egyptian dialect. The Jumia Egypt CEO placed the first voice order live at the launch event. The announcement says users can now order by voice commands instead of typing, and discloses no usage or conversion figures.

Sun & Ski Sports, a Texas based outdoor retailer with a strongly seasonal business, started its AI agent Sunny on basic returns and order status questions and then extended it to expert product advice on skis, boards, boots and bindings on its product pages. Sierra, the vendor, reports higher satisfaction on conversations the agent handles than on those transferred to humans, higher conversion for shoppers who engage with it, and a winter season without hiring temporary service staff.