Christmas with ChatGPT

Stores nervous as shoppers use AI to come up with gift ideas

- Sarah Butler

Christmas shopping - some love it, to others it’s a chore, and this year many of us will outsource the task of coming up with gift ideas to artificial intelligence.

While the main routes for most will still be traditional internet searches, social media - especially TikTok and Instagram - and simply wandering a local high street, about a quarter of people in the UK are already using AI to find the right products, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

For brands appealing to younger people, the revolution is well under way: KPMG says as many as 30% of shoppers aged 25-34 are using AI to search for products, compared with 1% of those aged over 65.

Asking a large language model (LLM) such as ChatGPT or Gemini what you should get your father-in-law - rather than typing “whisky” or “socks” into Google or DuckDuckGo - may seem a small change in habits. However, it marks a sea change for retailers accustomed to paying search engines to promote their listings.

LLMs allow users to ask questions in conversational language, perhaps by speaking into their computer or phone. Instead of just providing a list of links, they offer specific suggestions with the potential for big sales for items that are regularly recommended.