Can AI Deliver What Shoppers Want?
Buyers should be able to have better returns, recommendations—and images for what they're seeking.
Li Haslett Chen is the founder and CEO of Howl.
Much of the rhetoric around commerce and AI imagines a revolution in how we find and buy things.
OpenAI joined the discourse when it announced that you can buy directly through ChatGPT via partnerships with Walmart, Shopify and Etsy—all powered by Stripe. They’re not alone. AI answer engine Perplexity launched one-click checkout with PayPal in 2024, AI fashion agent Daydream is turning conversations into personal styling sessions, and AI browser extension Phia spots the best deals for you, whether they’re new or resale.
Every week, more companies are joining the AI commerce rush, and most of them are focused on helping us find products. But the friction lives elsewhere, and AI’s real potential is to fix the mundane indignities that are part of every purchase: returns that punish us for changing our minds; recommendations that bury us in options; interfaces that treat us as one-dimensional. At its best, AI will handle the annoying, complex parts of shopping so we can turn our attention to the beautiful, useful things people create.