Can AI Chatbots Make Your Holiday Shopping Easier?

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the holiday shopping season? If you are tired of coming up with gift ideas, AI chatbots might offer some help. However, it is important not to rely on them completely, as they might not always provide accurate information or handle all your shopping needs.

This year, while looking for deals on Amazon or during Cyber Monday, you are likely to come across various chatbots. Many retailers are these days adopting chatbots that can engage in conversation, helping customers in a more friendly manner compared to previous versions.

Some companies are now utilizing advanced generative AI technology, which means shoppers can ask questions in a more casual way, such as “What’s the best wireless speaker?” This new capability is intended to help consumers find products or compare options easily.

Retailers envision these chatbots, often referred to as shopping assistants, as virtual helpers to guide you in your buying journey. In the past, chatbots focused primarily on functional tasks like tracking orders or processing returns. Now, they aspire to enhance the shopping experience.

For instance, Amazon has introduced a generative AI shopping assistant named Rufus. Customers have been asking Rufus practical questions—like how easy a particular coffee maker is to clean or for suggestions for fun birthday games for kids.

Rufus isn’t alone. This year, Walmart is piloting a similar chatbot that assists shoppers in specific categories, such as toys and electronics.

Perplexity AI has made strides by adding a feature that allows users to inquire about products, generating specific results without sponsored content. This new feature has seen rapid adoption.

Interest in chatbots surged after the rise of ChatGPT, a text-based AI by OpenAI, late last year, which made businesses and consumers more curious about the potential of generative AI tools.

Notable brands like Victoria’s Secret, IKEA, and Instacart are also experimenting with chatbots, some using OpenAI’s technology.

Though many online retailers, including Amazon, already created recommendations based on past purchases or searches, the introduction of Rufus aims to provide a more interactive experience by asking follow-up questions to sharpen its suggestions. Customers often turn to Rufus for personalized deals too.

However, it’s crucial to remember that chatbots, including Rufus, can be prone to errors. An example highlighted by an e-commerce expert is when Rufus offered gaming TV recommendations, but included products that were not TVs at all. Additionally, when asked for the least expensive options, it failed to deliver the best choices.

In a recent interactive session, when requested to suggest gifts for a brother, Rufus provided a mix of ideas, including a T-shirt and an engraved multifunctional knife. However, it struggled to analyze seller prices or offer price comparisons accurately.

Shop AI, another chatbot introduced by Shopify, also assists shoppers by asking clarifying questions about desired gifts. Yet, it shares similar issues in providing specific product recommendations or lowest prices in categories.

This indicates that while chatbots are improving, they still have their limitations. The technology remains in development, with room for enhancement before it can fully cater to consumer needs as retailers expect.

As highlighted by consulting firm McKinsey & Company, effective shopping assistants must become more personalized, remembering customers' preferences, order history, and purchase habits.

Amazon's Rufus uses information sourced from product listings, community Q&A, and customer reviews to inform its suggestions. This may include fake reviews, which can distort how products are perceived in the marketplace.

The large language model powering these chatbots relies on Amazon’s extensive catalog and publicly available online data. However, it remains uncertain how different factors like reviews are weighted in these recommendations, as noted by industry analysts.

Additionally, Perplexity AI offers a unique shopping feature, allowing users to search queries like “best phone case” to receive derived answers from various sources including Amazon and Best Buy. This feature encourages retailers to share product data to increase the likelihood of their items appearing in search results.

Nonetheless, the CEO of Perplexity AI acknowledged the complexity of predicting chatbot outputs based solely on input data, emphasizing that results should reflect genuine product quality instead of keyword manipulation on websites.

AI, Shopping, Chatbots