Target has launched a pioneering AI-integrated shopping app on OpenAI’s ChatGPT platform, enabling personalised, seamless purchases directly through conversational AI, marking a major shift in retail automation and customer engagement.
Target Corporation is stepping into the AI-driven retail future with the launch of a pioneering app on OpenAI’s ChatGPT platform, enabling customers to discover and shop its extensive product range directly through conversational AI. ...
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This new feature aims to combine convenience with a personalised and seamless shopping journey, allowing users to request tailored recommendations, browse the full Target assortment, build baskets, and complete purchases via their Target accounts within ChatGPT.
The app supports buying multiple items in a single transaction and covers a broad array of products, including fresh food. Shoppers can also select flexible fulfilment options such as drive-up, in-store pickup, or home shipping. According to Prat Vemana, Target’s EVP and Chief Information and Product Officer, this initiative reflects the company’s commitment to meet customers “wherever they are,” including emerging digital channels like ChatGPT, “where millions of consumers visit.” Vemana outlined the vision to make interactions feel “as natural, helpful and inspiring as chatting with a friend,” underscoring the retailer’s focus on guest-centric innovation.
This move places Target among the first retailers to integrate deeply with AI conversational platforms in a curatorial, commerce-enabled manner. The company has already been leveraging ChatGPT Enterprise internally to enhance operational efficiency, boost creativity, and accelerate workflows, ranging from supply chain forecasting to store process improvements and personalised digital experiences. Vemana highlighted how AI is integral to Target’s operational DNA, enabling rapid adaptation to trends, smoother guest interactions, and intelligent tools that reduce friction for employees.
The collaboration with OpenAI is part of a broader shift in retail, where AI-powered conversational commerce is rapidly gaining traction. OpenAI CEO of Applications, Fidji Simo, praised Target’s ambitious and swift integration of AI across its business, aiming to craft “useful and joyful experiences for their customers and their employees.” OpenAI’s growing footprint in retail is evident from partnerships with over one million businesses leveraging its models for various functions.
Notably, Target’s entry into ChatGPT shopping emerges alongside similar ventures by retail giants. Walmart has also partnered with OpenAI to enable direct in-chat product purchases through a feature called Instant Checkout, allowing consumers to complete transactions for groceries and household items conveniently within ChatGPT. Walmart CEO Doug McMillon framed this as a transformative shift from traditional e-commerce browsing to conversational shopping. This development reflects a rising trend where AI interfaces replace conventional online store visits, aiming to streamline the routine purchase process.
Moreover, OpenAI has expanded ChatGPT’s shopping capabilities beyond individual retailers by integrating features such as personalised product recommendations with images, reviews, and direct purchase links across categories like fashion, beauty, electronics, and home goods. These enhancements, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4o model, offer unbiased recommendations based on structured data rather than advertising incentives, positioning ChatGPT as a consumer-friendly alternative to ad-driven search engines.
OpenAI is also working with marketplaces like Etsy and soon Shopify to enable users to buy goods directly within the chat interface, facilitated by secure payment processing through Stripe’s Instant Checkout system. This growing ecosystem of AI-powered commerce underpins OpenAI’s aspiration to establish ChatGPT as a major virtual shopping destination, competing with e-commerce and search giants.
Target’s integration with ChatGPT represents a significant evolution in retail technology, blending the ease of conversational AI with curated shopping experiences and direct purchasing power. By embedding its full product range and personalised service into this emerging channel, Target aims to create joyful, frictionless shopping moments that resonate with consumers increasingly interacting with brands through digital assistants and AI platforms. This initiative also signals how leading retailers are embedding AI not just as a tool, but as a fundamental operational and customer engagement strategy in the fast-changing retail landscape.
Source: Noah Wire Services
