What happened
Target launched a beta version of its AI shopping assistant, Ask Target, for the holiday rush. Chief merchandising officer Cara Sylvester said the team pushed it through to capitalize on the retailer's biggest season.
Why it matters
The early beta is meant to drive sales during Target's peak period, though Sylvester said it is too early to say what the basket-size impact is.
WHO IT HITSTarget shoppers browsing holiday gift lists and store employees learning new merchandise, such as the Beauty Studio department, are the first to use Ask Target.
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Target's launch of a beta Ask Target chatbot comes two months after the retailer hired former Lowe's AI head Chandhu Nair as its first chief AI officer. Nair previously oversaw Lowe's Mylow chatbot, which the company has credited with "dramatic improvements" in customer service.
Retailers say chatbots trained on proprietary in-house data respond to customer queries better than outside bots like OpenAI's ChatGPT or Google's Gemini, and can act as a digital counterpart for personal AI agents like Meta's Muse. Target is moving into this space as rivals Amazon, Walmart, and Lowe's have offered similar features for months.
Walmart has said its Sparky agent helps it understand customers better, with Sparky users building shopping baskets 40% larger than non-users. Sylvester said it is too early to say what the basket-size impacts of Ask Target are.
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