It didn’t take long for the impact of ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout, which enables consumers to buy products without exiting the platform, to be felt. Just two weeks after OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, rolled out the Gen AI-powered shopping tool, Walmart teamed up with the tech company, setting the stage for customers to be able to purchase merchandise directly within the chatbot.
“For many years now, e-commerce shopping experiences have consisted of a search bar and a long list of item responses. That is about to change,” said Walmart president and chief executive officer Doug McMillon. “There is a native AI experience coming that is multimedia, personalized and contextual. We are running towards that more enjoyable and convenient future.”
Change is coming for Walmart as well as its customers. With transactions conducted via ChatGPT, the retailer — which earlier this year rolled out Sparky, its own AI shopping assistant — will share control of valuable data with OpenAI, data that was previously proprietary. Walmart’s willingness to do so indicates the level of importance that McMillon and his colleagues assign to Gen AI-based commerce.
If Walmart, which continues to invest heavily in artificial intelligence and other advanced technology, saw the need to join forces with OpenAI, it’s likely other major retailers that intend to maintain their standing in the marketplace will follow suit. Expect a tech arms race to quickly take shape in the retail sector.
Gen AI is the current battleground, but retail executives and their counterparts in the CPG industry should also be aware of quantum computing, another game changer on the horizon. IterateON, a conference held last month in Boulder, Colo., addressed the intersection of the two technologies, as well as recent developments in AI.
“The Quantum Experience was all about showing how quantum computing could define the next hundred years of humanity,” said Jon Nordmark, co-founder and CEO of Iterate.ai, which helps companies build and operate AI agents. “It will impact us greatly. Whereas the computers we work with today use bits, which are essentially on/off switches, qubits in quantum computing operate more like dimmer switches. That creates all these probabilities which are infinite compared to what we have today.”
Nordmark and other experts indicate that the development of quantum computing has reached a point comparable to where Gen AI stood prior to the debut of ChatGPT in late 2022, with real-world applications likely to emerge before the end of the decade. When they do, the competitive landscape in the retail and CPG sectors will no doubt undergo further upheaval.
