Shipt, Target's delivery app, announced the launch of Ask Shipt, an AI assistant available on Shipt's app and website. The tool allows customers to describe items they want to purchase or upload a photo of a food item to identify ingredients needed to make it, with results they can add directly to their cart.
The announcement came the same day Instacart launched Clementine, its own AI shopping assistant with similar functionality. Instacart also made its white-label shopping assistant available to other retailers to implement on their platforms. For commerce practitioners, these moves signal that conversational AI is becoming table-stakes in the delivery space, with platforms competing to reduce friction in the shopping experience and capture more share of wallet.