ChatGPT AI bot adds shopping to its powers

Overwhelmed by online shopping? Maybe a robot can help.

The viral ChatGPT bot is adding shopping features to its powers, extending the reach of its artificial intelligence (AI) into an area traditionally dominated by media sites and tech rivals such as Amazon and Google.

It said the update would allow users to see prices and reviews more easily, as well as find direct links to purchase personalised product recommendations.

Parent company OpenAI said its selections would be “chosen independently and are not ads”.

The company, which sparked the frenzy over AI in 2022 with its technological advances, debuted its search tool last year. It said it was among its most popular and fastest growing features, with over one billion web searches in the last week.

Google is still by far the dominant player in search, capturing roughly 89% of global traffic, according to analyst estimates. But its share of the market has been slowly slipping in recent months.

Adding shopping to its search puts OpenAI into even more direct competition with Google, as well other websites that offer product reviews, such as the New York Times and other publishers.

Amazon unveiled its own generative AI shopping assistant last year, while rival AI firm Perplexity also has a shopping tool.

OpenAI said the goal of its update was to make it “faster to find, compare, and buy products”. It said the feature would be available to all users but it would take a few days for the rollout to be complete.

The change was one of several announced on Monday as part of a wider update to its search product.

OpenAI also unveiled a feature that would allow users to text chatGPT for live sports scores and would provide multiple citations in its answers.