AI-powered shopping is the theme of the holiday shopping season

NEW YORK – Major retail chains and technology companies are offering new or updated artificial intelligence tools in time for the holiday shopping season, hoping to make it easier for consumers to buy gifts and allow them to spend more online.

Although AI-powered shopping is still in its infancy, the shopping assistants and agents from Walmart, Amazon, and Google can do more than the chatbots of holidays past. The latest versions are designed to provide personalized product recommendations, track prices, and place some orders through unscripted “conversations” with customers.

These features complement shopping updates from AI platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google Gemini. In one of the most talked-about product launches of the season, Google this month introduced an AI agent that can be instructed to call local stores and ask if a desired product is in stock.

San Francisco software company Salesforce estimates AI would have an impact of $73…