The holiday season is fast approaching, and that means Black Friday sales and lots of Christmas shopping. Timing up with this, the AI chatbots of the world are all launching their own AI shopping features.
This started with ChatGPT's new shopping research tool, which embarks on detailed research projects based on your shopping prompts. For example, finding all of the best TVs under a certain price, offering links, deals and explanations of why they're right for you.
Then, the competition all fell in behind, with Perplexity creating a similar tool, utilising what the chatbot already knows about you to help inform purchasing decisions. Both Gemini and Microsoft's Copilot also had the same idea, launching their own versions, too.
So, how do all these shopping tools work, and which one should you use for the shopping season?
ChatGPT Shopping research
ChatGPT's new "shopping research" tool is available worldwide and accessible on both free and paid plans.
To use it, click the + button on the side of the ChatGPT Ask Anything bar, then select Shopping Research. From here, simply prompt the chatbot using a shopping-related query.
This could be something like "Find me the best TV deals right now" or something more complicated, such as "My stepdad loves fishing, but I have no idea where to start on gifts. Suggest ideas under $50 that are small enough to be taken on a flight.”
ChatGPT aims for the entire shopping process, from research to purchase, to be done via its platform. It takes a couple of minutes to search and returns a long response, researching your request.
Perplexity
While ChatGPT’s new tool is available to everyone worldwide, Perplexity is available exclusively in the US for now. However, it can be used on both free and paid versions of the chatbot.
For this, Perplexity has partnered with PayPal. It works similarly to ChatGPT — you simply give it a shopping-related prompt, and Perplexity will search the internet, returning deals and products that best fit your request.
Where Perplexity differs slightly is that it does it all within the tool itself, allowing you to pay via PayPal without ever going directly to the website.
For now, Perplexity's shopping mode is only available via the web or desktop version. It will be coming to both the iOS and Android apps in the next couple of weeks.
Microsoft Copilot
Also exclusively for US users (both free and paid), Microsoft is launching shopping features via Copilot.
This tool works a bit differently from the two mentioned above. While using Microsoft Edge, Copilot will offer cashback, price comparisons, price history, product insights and price tracking.
This is less a way to shop and research, and more of an assistant when shopping online. If you go to a supported retailer page, you can click on the Copilot icon, and the AI tool will show a card of product insights.
One feature that is especially useful here is the ability to set price alerts. This will remind you when the item you’re looking to buy is dropping in price. Like ChatGPT or Perplexity, you can have a back-and-forth conversation about the products that you’re looking to buy.
Gemini
Like ChatGPT and Perplexity, Gemini has released a shopping tool that is based on prompts. This is all done via Google’s AI mode.
You can find this when you open the Google app or go to Google.com; it also shows in any search you make at the top.
When you open AI mode, ask it a shopping-related question, and you’ll get an answer to your question, along with a list of recommended products that you can then purchase.
Google’s big advantage here is its history with Google Shopping. It includes 50 billion product listings, with 2 billion being updated every hour.
For US users, you can now also shop directly in the Gemini app. The advantage here is that you get the full smarts of the Gemini AI model, along with the shopping ability of Google.
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