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TikTok announced Monday that it’s launching an AI shopping assistant and a new in-app checkout feature that lets users buy directly from brands. TikTok describes its new Shopping Assistant as a conversational AI agent designed to help users discover and purchase products. The company says the assistant understands context and remembers users’ preferences and needs throughout the conversation. It offers real-time, AI-powered shopping guidance, such as product details, shipping information, sizing, availability, and help completing a purchase. As for the new checkout feature, TikTok says users can buy directly from a brand from their For You feed (the app’s main, algorithm-driven video feed) with one click. The new features could allow TikTok to capture more of users’ shopping journeys, and potentially more transaction value, without sending them elsewhere. By pairing a shopping assistant with direct payments, TikTok is turning its impulse-driven discovery feed into a place where users can get answers to questions about a product and make a purchase on the spot. By building an AI assistant for shopping directly in its app, TikTok also appears to be hoping that users will stay within its platform when they have questions about a product, rather than turning to outside AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The company says these new features are being built in partnership with commerce platforms and payment providers including Salesforce, Shopify, Shoplazza, and Stripe, among others. While TikTok Shop, the app’s in-house marketplace, has been the platform’s main engine for the company’s e-commerce ambitions, these new features broaden its approach beyond the existing shopping hub. Rather than relying on TikTok Shop to drive purchases, the social network is now integrating shopping tools more directly into the broader app, including the For You feed. The expansion comes as TikTok’s influence on shopping continues to grow. According to TikTok’s Economic Impact Report that was released last week, activity on the platform helped generate $81 billion in GDP for U.S. businesses, while 54 million Americans said they had purchased a product after watching a TikTok video. TikTok Shop launched in the U.S. in September 2023. The market research firm eMarketer estimates it generated about $15.8 billion in U.S. sales in 2025, representing roughly 18% of all U.S. social commerce.
document fetched 2026-10-06 02:55 · canonical https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/05/tiktok-rolls-out-an-ai-shopping-assistant-and-one-click-checkout