AI Shopping Companion

The large general merchandise retailer Walmart launched its generative AI shopping assistant, accessible within the retailer's mobile application, in June 2025. The assistant synthesizes product reviews, offers occasion-based recommendations such as party planning or meal preparation, and interprets complex natural language queries to guide customers through multi-step purchasing decisions. During the company's Q4 fiscal year 2026 earnings call in February 2026, newly appointed CEO John Furner disclosed that customers using the AI assistant generate average order values approximately 35% higher than non-users. Approximately half of the retailer's app users had engaged with the assistant by that date, and the company announced plans for global expansion. The assistant is being trained with retail-specific large language models and is being integrated with external AI platforms including those from OpenAI and Google to extend product discoverability.

In the direct-to-consumer fashion segment, the luxury footwear brand They New York deployed an on-site AI-powered sales assistant to replicate the personalized service of its physical retail locations. The implementation produced a 3.2-times increase in online conversion rates, matching brick-and-mortar performance. Over 50% of all online transactions occurred after an interaction with the AI assistant, and the company reported a 14-times return on investment, according to a case study published by the conversational AI platform provider. Separately, a 2025 Zoovu case study documented that the global technology company Microsoft increased conversion rates by more than 28% after deploying AI-powered product discovery experiences across hundreds of product categories, while the industrial equipment manufacturer Bosch achieved a 65% increase in average order value through AI-driven accessory bundling recommendations.