AI could help you more with shopping this holiday season

New tools and features from retailers and tech companies use artificial intelligence to help people find gifts and make decisions about their shopping lists, write Natallie Rocha and Kailyn Rhone from San Francisco and New York

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This holiday season, shoppers have more artificial intelligence to help with their gift lists.

Target, Walmart, Ralph Lauren and other retailers this year unveiled chatbots that act as conversational stylists and shopping assistants. That means people who want to find matching pyjamas for the family can ask a chatbot to sort through the options, or for a summary of customer reviews of an air fryer.

At the same time, AI companies are getting into e-commerce. In September, OpenAlI debuted an instant checkout feature in ChatGPT so people can buy items from stores such as Etsy without leaving the chat. This month, Google announced an Al assistant that can call local stores to check if an item is in stock, while Amazon rolled out an AI feature that tracks price drops and automatically buys an item if it falls within someone's budget.

The goal is to provide shoppers with a tailored and convenient experience, retailers and tech companies said. Many of the new chatbots are “agents,” which are programs that act autonomously and can respond to specific questions and context. They go beyond customer service chatbots that could handle only limited questions about returns or the status of an order.

The latest chatbots can make holiday shopping more “personalised, efficient and cost-effective,’ said Lori Schafer, the CEO of Digital Wave Technology, which helps companies with Al tools.

“It fundamentally changes how people shop — moving from humans searching for products to Al bringing the right products, at the best price, directly to them,” she said.