How Al is disrupting shopping

Looking for Christmas gifts? Just ask a chatbot.

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Festive decorations in a window display at a department store in Paris. With browsing shifting away from retailers' and brands' own websites as AI upends online shopping, shops with striking displays and charming assistants will offer another way for companies to shape how they are perceived.

(PHOTO: BLOOMBERG)

The time of year has come again when gift-givers must trudge around shops and scroll endlessly through e-commerce websites to find suitable Christmas presents for their loved ones. Some will enjoy browsing. Many will not. A growing number will happily outsource much of the process to artificial intelligence (AI).

Chatbots offer a personal shopper for all. They can listen to what a user wants, produce a shortlist of products and help with comparisons. This holiday season, around two-thirds of consumers in rich countries (and five-sixths of those aged 18 to 24) plan to use AI to help them shop, according to a survey by Shopify, a provider of e-commerce tools.

A study by McKinsey, a consultancy, found that the second-most common use in America for ChatGPT-like "generative" Al is for shopping advice, behind general research but ahead of writing assistance. Increasingly, consumers can even make purchases directly through a chatbot.

McKinsey reckons that by 2030, US$3 trillion (S$3.89 trillion) to US$5 trillion of shopping worldwide will be conducted through such "agents". The retail industry is on the cusp of its next big upheaval.

AI firms are betting that their technology will disrupt shopping, just as e-commerce did in the internet age.

Although OpenAl has deprioritised efforts to integrate ads into ChatGPT, it has struck deals with Etsy, an online marketplace for artisanal wares, and Shopify, to allow merchants to sell their wares through its chatbot in return for a fee.