Gungho About Grocery Gimmicks: Instacart’s New Buzzwords
Lazy Shoppers Get Chat Help
Instacart, in an attempt to stay relevant even as Amazon and Walmart continue to dominate the grocery delivery scene, today puffed out its chest with a couple of apparent upgrades to its Storefront platform. In what it’s touting as revolutionary (ha!), the company is introducing something called “conversational search” which is largely powered by ChatGPT.
The ‘Future’ (If By Future You Mean Another Gimmick)
This so-called conversational search feature, allegedly, will allow the platform’s ever so distinguished user base of couch-dwelling snack-seekers to type in loose search terms like ‘low fat snack for Netflix binge’, and it will, similar to a disappointed spouse, offer suitable options for you to ignore or throw into your virtual cart. The idea being that by employing AI technology, the platform interacts with its users in a more intuitive and ‘user-friendly’ way, irrespective of the fact most of us can efficiently type in ‘Cheetos’.
Whatever Floats Their Boat I Guess…
Apparently, this is the shopping experience of the future. In theory, a conversational AI like ChatGPT could make online shopping feel more like a real-life shopping assistant experience where you’re unloading your heart to the bored-to-death shop assistant about your film marathon needs, except without the judgment. It’s also theoretically more apt at understanding customer preferences and habits which, when added with the rest of the data pile Instacart has amassed, may result in even more personalized recommendations for the wide-eyed, pajama-wearing audience.
To Summarize This Snooze Fest of Tech ‘Innovation’
So let me put it to you straight: You’ve got a souped-up asking machine that can understand your mumbled nonsense and offer you snacks to pair with your questionable binge-watching habits. Is it revolutionary? Hardly. Is it kinda cool? OK, it’s a tiny bit cool. But let’s not kid ourselves, folks — they’re throwing a fresh coat of paint on things because the ‘conversational search’ fad is hot right now, not because it’s going to magically transform your shopping experience. So sit back, kick your feet up, grab your ‘healthy’ snacks (aka double-choc cookies), and congratulate Instacart on their ‘ground breaking’ innovation. What an era we live in!
Original article:https://venturebeat.com/ai/instacart-with-ipo-imminent-announces-chatgpt-powered-ecommerce-search/