According to Bloomberg NewsReportMeta has recently begun quietly testing an experimental "AI shopping assistant" feature on select desktop web users in the United States. Lucky testers will see a new "Shopping research" button in the Meta AI dialog box. This feature not only confirms Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's previous promise of "agentic shopping tools," but also signifies Meta's official entry into the AI-driven shopping war ignited by OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity.
From initial inquiry to initial skepticism: How does Meta AI Shopping Assistant work?
Based on current test results, this AI shopping assistant operates with a highly intuitive logic and integrates seamlessly into a visual e-commerce experience.
• Carousel-style product cards:When a user requests shopping suggestions from Meta AI, the chatbot will not just provide a bunch of plain text, but will generate a carousel containing product images, prices, and brand information.
• The exclusive reason "Why I recommend it to you":This is the biggest difference between AI-powered shopping guides and traditional search engines. Meta AI will add a brief explanation next to the recommended list, telling users why the product meets their needs.
• Combined with personalized data:If Meta AI obtains publicly available information about users (such as gender or location), it will automatically incorporate these criteria into its filtering. For example, when a tester asks for a coat recommendation, the AI will accurately recommend "women's down coats that are delivered to New York" based on their profile.
Currently, users cannot complete the checkout directly within the Meta AI interface, but they can click on the product link to be redirected directly to the brand's e-commerce website to complete the purchase.
Meta's rapid rise and the increasingly crowded AI-powered shopping guide market.
In fact, it's not surprising that Meta launched its shopping assistant at this time.
During the earnings call earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg told investors that Meta was actively developing a "proxy shopping tool" with autonomous execution capabilities. Meanwhile, competitors had already taken the lead: OpenAI launched a dedicated tool for ChatGPT just before Black Friday last year.Shopping AssistantGoogle followed closely behind, integrating powerful features into Gemini.Shopping ToolsAs for Perplexity, which focuses on AI search, it has also launched...Similar functions.
Compared to these competitors, Meta started a little later and is currently only being tested on a small scale in the United States on desktop web versions (the official timetable for full rollout has not yet been announced), but its huge community resources should not be underestimated.
