DoorDash announced the launch of Ask DoorDash, a conversational shopping assistant that builds a shoppable cart based on customer descriptions (Retail Dive - Technology). Grocery shoppers can input a recipe link, photo from a cookbook, or image of a shopping list to receive personalized recommendations, and can also type phrases like "healthy dinner for four under $40, no salad or chicken" to get tailored product suggestions (Retail Dive - Technology). The tool is available in select areas on Apple smartphones for restaurant search and grocery shopping and will roll out to more users in the coming weeks (Retail Dive - Technology).
DoorDash's conversational commerce tool comes as retailers and e-commerce providers turn to agentic AI to solve pain points in online grocery shopping (Retail Dive - Technology). The assistant relies on real-time data about merchants' in-stock items, menus, prices, hours, delivery distances, and inventory to provide accurate recommendations, addressing the rapid pace of change in online grocery operations (Retail Dive - Technology). For commerce practitioners, this signals the competitive importance of integrating agentic AI into customer-facing shopping experiences.
AI-powered grocery shopping remains in early stages, with Amazon currently showing the most advanced capabilities while many mainstream grocers rely on third-party firms like Instacart to connect with agentic shopping agents (Retail Dive - Technology). DoorDash's move positions it as a direct competitor in the agentic AI grocery space.