Uber Eats launches AI assistant to help you create a shopping cart | TechCrunch

Uber Eats on Wednesday announced a new artificial intelligence feature, “Cart Assistant,” designed to make it faster and easier to fill customers’ shopping carts. The beta version is now available in the app.​

To use the new chatbot, users search for a grocery store in the Uber Eats app and tap the purple Cart Assistant icon on the store’s page to start shopping.

Customers can enter a list or upload a picture of one of them, and Cart Assistant will automatically add the necessary items to their cart. This includes photos of handwritten lists or screenshots of recipes and their ingredients. Users can then customize the cart by exchanging items for preferred brands or adding other products from the store.​​

Uber Eats notes that Cart Assistant uses previous orders to prioritize familiar items—like your usual milk or favorite oatmeal—to make the experience more personalized.​​

“Users have been telling us they want a faster way to shop, and we know how precious your time is,” Uber CTO Praveen Neppalli Naga said in a statement. “Cart Assistant helps you get from idea to checkout in seconds.”

Cart Assistant could help Uber Eats better compete with other food and grocery delivery apps that are already integrating or developing AI chatbots. For example, Instacart launched an AI search engine based on OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2023 to help customers save time and receive personalized shopping recommendations. DoorDash also reportedly tested an artificial intelligence chatbot called DashAI that same year.​

Last year, both Uber Eats and rival DoorDash integrated with ChatGPT to streamline food ordering. With Uber Eats, US users can browse local restaurants and menus in ChatGPT and then complete their purchase in the Uber Eats app. DoorDash integration allows users to request meal plans and automatically add all necessary ingredients to their DoorDash cart.

In 2023, Bloomberg reported that Uber Eats was developing an AI chatbot that would reportedly ask users about their budget and food preferences and help them place an order.

Overall, Uber Eats is making rapid investments in AI, including tools for marketers such as AI-generated menu descriptions, enhanced food photos, and summaries of customer reviews.