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Dive Brief: - Instacart and Shipt separately announced Wednesday the launches of artificial intelligence-powered shopping assistants. - Clementine, Instacart’s new marketplace tool, and Ask Shipt, which is available on Shipt’s app and website, can build a grocery cart using a conversation with a customer or an uploaded photo. - The launches are the latest efforts by third-party technology providers to help make online grocery shopping easier for people. Dive Insight: Instacart and Shipt each highlighted in their announcements how their marketplace AI assistants aim to ease the mental burden of grocery shopping while factoring in a customer’s budget. “Every night, millions of families ask the same question: ‘What’s for dinner?’ Not knowing the answer, let alone what to shop for, is one of the most universal human experiences, and a problem Instacart is built to solve,” Instacart CEO Chris Rogers said in the announcement. Rogers noted that Instacart’s tool learns from users’ preferences and what they’ve already shopped for on the company’s platform. The tool also bases its product selections on inventory levels at the customer’s chosen store. Along with filling an online grocery cart, Clementine can generate recipes, pull already published recipes, suggest savings opportunities and automatically reorder items. Instacart said that Clementine can follow a household’s typical food choices. People can set preferences such as gluten-free or organic that Clementine will then use to inform its personalized suggestions. Clementine comes nearly a year after Instacart’s unveiling of Cart Assistant, an AI assistant for retailers’ websites that uses the same technology behind Clementine. Instacart also announced Wednesday that more retailer partners — Food Bazaar, Heritage Grocers Group and Woodman’s Markets — have started offering the Cart Assistant. Aldi U.S., The Save Mart Companies, Stew Leonard’s and more will soon follow. Meanwhile, Ask Shipt can identify ingredients based on a photo of a dish, plan a meal for a party, follow prompts about staying under a certain budget and surface promotions. Shipt said that customers can review and edit the AI assistant-built cart before checking out. In the Wednesday announcement, Shipt said it will soon launch a feature called Shared Lists, which will let multiple people contribute to a shopping list that can be turned into a cart. In August, Shipt announced an AI integration with ChatGPT and Claude. “From AI-powered shopping experiences to new collaborative tools like Shared Lists, we’re building practical innovations that fit naturally into everyday life,” Smrutha Ipparthi, the company’s chief technology and product officer, said in the announcement.
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