There was a time when only the wealthy could afford the luxury of a personal shopper, someone who understood their wardrobe, anticipated preferences and curated options. For everyone else, the digital age merely multiplied the labour. Shoppers bounced between apps, scrolled through hundreds of listings, filled carts with half-certain choices and abandoned most of them before checkout. Even as online retail expanded, the burden of decision-making remained squarely on the consumer. But now there is a decisive shift. Artificial intelligence has stepped forward as the central decision-maker in how people discover and select what they buy.
The newest generation of AI shopping tools does not operate like search engines but like advisers where it is interpreting a person’s needs and filtering the deluge of choice. ChatGPT’s “shopping research” feature is emblematic of this change. Rather than sending users down a chain of links, it asks questions familiar to any good personal stylist like: What’s your budget? How do you intend to use this product? What brands do you gravitate towards? It collates prices, reviews and trade-offs effortlessly before delivering a neatly structured buyer’s guide.
From Search Engines to Advisers
Consumers appear ready for the shift. CapGemini’s latest consumer research, “What Matters to Today’s Consumer” report, based on a comprehensive global survey of 12,000 consumers aged 18 and over across 12 countries, including India, shows that shoppers are increasingly open to intelligent technology in the retail experience. According to the study, 71% of consumers want Gen AI integrated into their shopping interactions, and 68% are interested in tools that aggregate search results across online search engines, social media, and retailers’ websites.
The research confirms that consumers are welcoming the use of AI tools to streamline the search experience. Nearly six in 10 consumers (58%) have replaced traditional search engines with gen AI tools for product/service recommendations, an 86% increase from 2023. Meanwhile, of those shoppers who use gen AI tools, 68% have bought products recommended by them.
This transformation is not limited to just conversational platforms.
Retail apps, especially in beauty and fashion, have begun integrating their own AI layers to guide purchases. Beauty brands now deploy shade-matching tools that scan a user’s face and recommend lipstick or foundation tones with precision once reserved for in-store consultants. Clothing apps use AI-driven fit visualisers to suggest dresses based on body shape and past preferences. Jewellers, too, have adopted augmented reality fittings, allowing shoppers to ‘try on’ earrings, rings and necklaces through their phone cameras, while the underlying AI evaluates what complements a person’s complexion and style. These tools mirror the personalised attention of traditional shopping but without the friction of an appointment or a commute.
Platform Race
The major platforms are moving fastest. Google has begun rolling out a feature it calls “agentic checkout”, its AI can now call nearby stores, check for stock, compare prices and surface promotions. The technology represents an attempt to defend Google’s central role in shopping, at a time when users increasingly bypass search engines entirely and turn to AI assistants
for clarity.
Amazon, meanwhile, is turning its ecosystem into a tightly integrated AI shopping environment. Its assistant, Rufus, interprets natural questions, compares models, reads reviews and generates succinct summaries of what matters. Combined with Lens AI for photo-driven searches and automated review highlights, Amazon now offers a personalised journey that echoes the confidence once provided by in-store advisers. In India, a mobile-first market where shoppers frequently turn to influencers for purchase decisions, Amazon has woven in human-led formats: over one lakh creators are part of its influencer programme, and thousands of live video streams offer shoppers the reassurance of real-time demonstrations layered on top of
AI interpretations.
For shoppers, the shift brings both ease and complexity. The traditional process, which takes hours of browsing, comparing, debating, has always been labour intensive. AI dramatically reduces that effort, offering simulations of lipstick shades, previews of dresses and virtual jewellery fittings at the tap of a screen. But it also shifts trust towards systems that operate with a mixture of data clarity and algorithmic opacity. India provides a vivid example of the hybrid future now taking shape. Consumers, accustomed to juggling multiple platforms for electronics, beauty, apparel and accessories, are finding that AI reduces the legwork.
The integration of AR try-ons, influencer guidance and conversational assistants such as ChatGPT’s Shopping Research is producing a shopping experience that is both technologically ambitious and culturally specific. The evolution is far from over. As AI systems become more capable, as it anticipate needs, nudging preferences, even ordering on behalf of users, the boundaries between browsing, buying and being advised will continue to blur. What is clear is that shopping, once a chore of manual comparison, has become a dialogue. And the personal shopper, once an indulgence reserved for the few, has been reborn in digital form for millions.
