By Sharon Goldman
Publication Date: 2025-11-27 08:00:00
Looking for the perfect holiday gift? AI wants to help you.
In the past few weeks, OpenAI, Perplexity, Google, Amazon, and Walmart have launched a flurry of AI-powered shopping features, hoping this year’s holiday rush will flow—at least in part—through their new tools.
Between 15% and 30% of online shoppers are expected use generative AI to shop for holiday gifts this year, according to a new survey from Bain.
But Fortune’s testing of some of the platforms suggest that Santa doesn’t need to look for another job quite yet. While the offerings show flashes of magic, they may need a little more time before shoppers can rely on them for the real heavy lifting.
OpenAI’s Shopping Research is sleek, if not seamless
Last week, in a penthouse venue overlooking lower Manhattan, more than a dozen journalists clustered around rows of monitors as OpenAI unveiled its latest offering, called Shopping Research. Powered by a new ChatGPT-5 mini model and available across ChatGPT plans, it does deep product reconnaissance for you across the web.
Just describe what you want—“a gift for my four-year-old niece who loves art,” “Black Friday deals for these sneakers,” “a petite red holiday dress that’s festive but not over-the-top”—and within minutes, it produces a personalized interactive shopping guide.
The user interface is genuinely beautiful—a big step up from ChatGPT’s bare-bones text responses. You get quick quizzes, modern and sleek product cards you…
