Will AI Reshape Shopping Habits?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to change the consumer experience in a variety of ways, according to a few reports released this week. Let’s dig in…

While AI has already begun to shift how food and beverage companies ideate, formulate and find product-market-fit (and VCs are using the tools to seek out safer investments), the new technologies’ influence on the shopping experience cannot be overlooked.

Consumers are increasingly using AI to help make shopping decisions and guide choice from health impacts to prices, according to a recent report from financial service provider PwC.

• About 40% of consumers expect to use AI to find and compare products by 2023
• 33% of those consumers say they will allow AI to purchase on their behalf.

Already, we have seen how smart refrigerators can track low inventory of staple products. PwC argues that AI software will be used to not only alert consumers about when products need to be added to shopping lists, but will also begin purchasing groceries online automatically and setting up deliveries.

AI tools like ChatGPT are also changing how consumers perceive value and health. Increasingly, AI chatbots are being used by younger generations — Gen Z (18%) and Millennials (13%) — to learn about new products, according to retail data firm SPINS.

As consumers value personalization in their buying patterns, machine learning tech, along with wearable trackers, are nudging shoppers to make targeted decisions based on ingredient profile, price and diet choice.

“Consumers don’t think in categories — they think in outcomes: sleep, energy, confidence, recovery. And they expect products to adapt,” PwC reported.

The algorithms of online shopping platforms like Amazon or Instacart are tailored to each consumer, feeding shoppers insights and new products in more efficient ways than focus groups and surveys could achieve. For CPG brand operators, optimizing products for both physical store sales as well as online search performance has become even more imperative.

Gopuff’s relaunched website is embracing personalization by adding features that feed the need for immediacy. The platform will adapt to each customer’s choices, location and purchasing habits while providing a live video feed from one of Gopuff’s local micro-fulfillment centers with real-time item-by-item order packing updates.

The new site will take into account a user’s order history as well as local statistics, data-tracking and a live heatmap of purchase behavior. These insights are poised to impact consumer shopping while providing data-driven insights for inventory management and geo-targeted marketing.