Think carefully before letting Woolworths’ new AI system do your shopping

Woolworths has announced a partnership with Google to integrate agentic artificial intelligence into its chatbot Olive, launching in Australia later this year.

So far, Olive has mostly answered questions, solved problems, and directed customers to information.

Soon Olive will be able to do more: plan meals, interpret handwritten recipes, apply loyalty discounts and add suggested items directly to a customer’s online shopping cart.

Woolworths said Olive will not automatically complete purchases and customers will still need to approve and pay for orders.

This distinction is important, but it risks not understanding what is actually changing. By the time a shopper reaches the checkout, many of the key purchasing decisions may have already been made by the system.

From helper to decision maker

The most significant change for shoppers is how decisions are made during the shopping process – and who makes them.

Google describes its new system as “