Latest / Retail Media Breakfast Club / Retailer AI Assistants: Are Shoppers Actually Using Them?
Transcript
- Retailer AI Assistants: Are Shoppers Actually Using Them? === [00:00:00] Here's a number that should stop every retailer who's considering launching an AI assistant called. 70% of shoppers have experimented with AI tools to help them shop. Yet less than 15% have [00:00:15] used retailer AI shopping assistance. [00:00:18] That gap shows where we are versus retailers might think that we are. In this episode, I'm gonna share some new data from Acosta Group's shopper panel [00:00:30] that shows how shoppers are actually using AI assistance, including Rufuss and Sparky, and some from category retailers that you may be less familiar with. [00:00:42] Let's jump in. [00:00:44] [00:00:45] So this is shopper research conducted through Acosta Group's proprietary shopper community, and this cohort was surveyed in June of this year, over a thousand shoppers in the us [00:01:00] and and here are some snippets, Amazon's rufuss. [00:01:04] Assistant, just 14% of shoppers have tried it. Walmart, Sparky, 15%. Super interesting. Slightly more usage [00:01:15] of Walmart, Sparky. Meanwhile, Kroger's Chef Bot, which I'll admit I've never heard of, launched back in 2020, sits at just 5% usage with 80% of shoppers having never heard of it. [00:01:30] And so this is my first takeaway from this research and what I've been thinking about with AI shopping assistance, it is that the launch timing of these assistants has nothing to do with success. [00:01:42] Another retailer, [00:01:44] Alta [00:01:45] has a tool called Glam Lab, which really was a pioneer in augmented reality, Tryon tech. Um, and they launched this tool back in 2016. So in other words, a million years [00:02:00] ago, after nearly a decade live, only 9% of shoppers have used it and 73% have never heard of it. [00:02:09] Compare that back to again, Amazon's rufuss, which launched just last year and [00:02:15] already exceeds glam lab's awareness levels. [00:02:18] Now these tools are really pretty cool. Glam lab's AR capabilities overlay digital makeup with shade matching and personalization. And Chef [00:02:30] Bot Kroger's tool can identify 2000 ingredients just from photos and suggest recipes from a 20,000 item database, yet both lag behind simpler conversational assistance [00:02:45] that launched just months ago. [00:02:47] The front door always wins. Rufuss and Sparky from Amazon and Walmart succeed, in part because they're kind of unavoidable. They open the Amazon app to search [00:03:00] for batteries and Rufuss sits right there at the bottom of your screen. Same with shopping on Walmart's app,. Sparky was just added a couple of months ago to sit prominently in the main interface right [00:03:15] at the bottom of the screen there. [00:03:17] You encounter them while you're doing what you came to do, which is shop [00:03:20] kroger's Chef bot initially lived on Twitter, he had to know that it existed. Leave your shopping context, tweet a photo and wait for a [00:03:30] response. [00:03:30] Even after Kroger brought similar functionality into their app, people still see it as a peripheral tool. Glam lab from Alter faces the same problem. It's kind of buried within Alter's app as a [00:03:45] separate experience. You have to actively seek it out rather than kind of stumbling upon it during a normal browsing session. [00:03:51] Instacart has ask Instacart, which sits inside the app search experience, but it isn't always the starting point for [00:04:00] shoppers either, and that program's usage of 10% of the shopper cohort reflects that middling position. [00:04:09] I think that the retailers that are getting this right here think less about showcasing [00:04:15] AI as a widget and more about embedding it into existing search behaviors. Shoppers don't think in silos. [00:04:30] They bounce between online and in-store without skipping a beat. Acosta Group's. Connected Commerce agency helps brands unify trade and retail media budgets to invest where shoppers are most likely to convert, whether [00:04:45] that's on mobile or in the store aisle. Learn more about acoa Group Connected Commerce at ACOA Group and let them know Retail Media Breakfast Club sent you. [00:04:56] That's A-C-O-S-T [00:05:00] group. But there's another dynamic at play and it's a pretty big one. You've probably already had this thought in your head, which is reach. Amazon and Walmart touch every demographic, every category multiple [00:05:15] times per week, and so that frequency compounds awareness. [00:05:19] A shopper might hit Amazon. Weekly, but maybe only alter monthly. And so those extra touch points really matter when you're trying to [00:05:30] build new habits. These specialist category retailers face a choice. They can build a narrow purpose-built tool that excels at a specific task like makeup, try on [00:05:45] or recipe generation, or they could try and compete. [00:05:50] As general shopping concierges, despite operating in a specific domain, to me the answer is obvious. [00:06:00] Category retailers should focus on specialization, as I've talked about before. Consumers are going to prefer to use their own personal AI agents that know their full shopping history across all retailers [00:06:15] know their preferences, [00:06:17] and in that world, a tool that does something that chat, GPT can't like really great augmented reality, try-on experiences is going to work better than yet another [00:06:30] general assistant with limited context about each user. [00:06:34] So let's talk about what retailers need to accept and what brands should prepare for. So For retailers, the first thing is [00:06:45] awareness is your biggest enemy, not competition. Even tools that have existed for years stay unknown to most of these shoppers. If people don't know your AI tool exists, more years in market [00:07:00] won't necessarily save you. ~Second placement beats features.~ [00:07:02] ~Second placement is super important. A base ~second placement is super important. If the assistant is buried in the interface, consumers are not going to find it and try it out. And third, you can't sit on the fence [00:07:15] either. Commit to creating a unique tool that owns a very specific use case or go all in on interfacing with consumer facing AI agents and being involved in that future shopping revolution. [00:07:29] [00:07:30] The middle ground, which to me is launching a ineffective, annoying chat bot on your retailer.com, is just going to tick shoppers off. Now, what should brands prepare for? [00:07:44] [00:07:45] This fragmented landscape creates new challenges for brands. Each retailer's AI demands different content formats and optimization strategies. Natural language queries like best shampoo for oily hair under $15 [00:08:00] are going to replace keyword searches. [00:08:02] And the brands that invest early in structured AI ready product data that syndicated across all of their retailer partners are going to shape what these assistants [00:08:15] recommend. And yes, advertising will follow. As these assistants gain trust, expect sponsored recommendations to show up within their suggestions. [00:08:25] In terms of the hype cycle, with AI enabled shopping, it's [00:08:30] still early days. There's a huge gap between general AI usage at 70%. And retailer AI assistant adoption at 15%, and that Delta represents both the challenge [00:08:45] and the opportunity today. [00:08:46] The race centers on who can make their assistant an invisible but essential part of how people already shop. The winners will be the ones whose customers don't realize they're using AI [00:09:00] at all.