ReportWire

Tag: AI Shopping

  • How ChatGPT’s New Features Could Make Holiday Shopping Even Easier

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    Holiday shopping season is upon us, and if you’re stressing about finding gifts for your loved ones, you aren’t alone. In a bid to address that feeling, and to bolster their platform’s standing as a true all-in-one personal assistant, OpenAI has announced new shopping features in ChatGPT. 

    In an official blog post, OpenAI introduced what it calls “shopping research,” which it describes as “a new experience in ChatGPT that does the research for you to help you find the right products.” In this experience, the company wrote, users will be able to find products by prompting ChatGPT with questions like “help me find a powerful new laptop suitable for gaming under $1000 with a screen that’s over 15 inches” or “I need a gift for my four year old niece who loves art.”

    Once you’ve sent a shopping-related prompt to ChatGPT, or chosen shopping research as an option from ChatGPT’s dropdown menu, the platform should ask you some clarifying questions to get a better sense of the exact product you’re looking for. With this additional context, ChatGPT initiates a search across the internet to develop a comprehensive buyers guide. This search can take multiple minutes at a time. 

    This process is quite similar to deep research, a feature in which ChatGPT thinks hard about how to solve a problem, develops a plan, and then works for extended periods of time. Deep research is mostly used for information and data gathering, but the new shopping mode shows how such features can be pivoted in more commercial directions. 

    OpenAI says that shopping research utilizes a version of GPT-5 mini that has been customized specifically to excel at shopping tasks. “We trained it to read trusted sites, cite reliable sources, and synthesize information across many sources to produce high-quality product research,” the company wrote. 

    As ChatGPT searches on your behalf, it may ask additional questions. After I prompted the platform to help me find a toy for my nine-year-old nephew who loves construction, it asked me about my budget, what kinds of construction my nephew is into (trucks? architecture?) and the level of complexity that the toy should have. While searching, the platform asked me to preview a few of the products it had identified, and select a “more like this” option for the ones that most resemble my desired product.  

    Once ChatGPT was done searching, it delivered a report that reminded me of a New York Times Wirecutter article. Like Wirecutter, the report included an overall top pick (in this case a $50 magnetic tile building set), a scrollable comparison table of similar options, and short blurbs about other products with specific labels like “best mechanical STEM project under $50.” 

    Of course, AI models still get it wrong sometimes, and OpenAI is quick to caution that “shopping research might make mistakes about product details like price and availability, and we encourage you to visit the merchant site for the most accurate details.” 

    The company wrote that “hundreds of millions of people” already use ChatGPT to find new products, but the shopping research experience will provide a more dedicated framework when the platform is asked these kinds of questions. OpenAI also said that shopping research “performs especially well in detail-heavy categories like electronics, beauty, home and garden, kitchen and appliances, and sports and outdoor.” 

    In the future, OpenAI says users will be able to purchase products directly through ChatGPT. One company that’s already signed up for this “instant checkout” feature is Walmart, which in October announced a deal with OpenAI to allow users to shop the iconic retailer directly in ChatGPT. And Target just announced its own ChatGPT-specific app, which can be accessed on the platform by tagging @target in the prompt. 
    OpenAI says the shopping features are available for all ChatGPT users with an account, so free users can get in on the gift planning, too. If you’re an entrepreneur eager to get your products featured on ChatGPT, make sure that AI agents can access your website by following the company’s allowlisting guidelines. 

    The final deadline for the 2026 Inc. Regionals Awards is Friday, December 12, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.

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    Ben Sherry

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  • What Long Island retailers should know about holiday 2025 | Long Island Business News

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    This year’s outlook has improved, with gift budgets up 7 percent since June. Forty-one percent of consumers plan to do most of their shopping between Black Friday and Cyber Monday to take advantage of deals, and artificial intelligence is increasingly shaping the shopping experience.

    The findings come from PwC, which has an office in Melville, and were released Tuesday in the firm’s “2025 Holiday Sentiment Survey.”

    Earlier this year, “cautious,” “deliberate” and “value” reflected consumer sentiment, according to PwC. But now, shoppers say they “are willing to stretch their budgets, even if it means cutting back in January,” according to the survey.

    The survey was conducted between Oct. 28 and Oct. 30 and included 2,092 adults 18 and older within the United States.

    Holiday spending varies by generation, and not everyone plans to increase their budgets. The survey found that millennials and Gen X are cutting back while and Gen Z plan to spend more, reflecting differing financial priorities.

    Millennials are scaling back their expected gift spending to $843, down from $921 in June, with a similar trend among Gen X, whose planned spending fell to $679 from $705. The pullback may reflect parents balancing holiday priorities with rising costs, according to PwC.

    In contrast, baby boomers are planning to spend $858, up from $671, and Gen Z plans to spend $622, up from $586. For Gen Z, the increase may reflect higher prices, while older generations may be signaling greater financial stability and a willingness to splurge on children and grandchildren, according to PwC.

    What are people buying? Gift cards top the list, according to 50 percent of those surveyed, followed by apparel (39 percent), toys (37 percent) consumable – that is, food and beverages – gifts (34 percent), books and music and movies (30 percent).

    This year, 50 percent of those surveyed are paying with cash, which may reflect a desire by consumers to “manage debt, stay on budget or make spending more intentional,” according to PwC. Yet baby boomers and Gen X favor credit cards, but Gen Z prefers debit and mobile payments, with 24% report using Apple or Google Pay.

    And shoppers are leaning into AI, using it to check prices, budgeting, generating gift ideas and even writing gift messages or cards. While 38 percent of millennials plan to use AI to find gift ideas, 51 percent say they are using for these purposes.

    With 47 percent of consumers planning to shop online in search of the best prices, retailers can expect digital channels to play a central role in this year’s holiday season.


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    Adina Genn

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