Find me Rihanna's Super Bowl lipstick
This week, Perplexity, the AI-powered search engine, introduced a shopping feature for its paid users in the US, giving them an edge over rivals.
Perplexity has integrated the catalogues of large retailers like Amazon, Shopify, and Best Buy, with a one-click checkout. You feel like you're talking with a chatbot, but with much greater intelligence and access to information. I asked it to "find me Rihanna's lipstick she wore during her Super Bowl Performance," which it did and provided me with a choice of retailers to purchase from, with links to their websites. If I lived in the US and had the Pro License, I could buy in one click and get free shipping.
It's similar to Amazon's Rufus assistant, but subjectively provides better answers and has checkout buttons in the results. It's also not limited to products on Amazon. The new feature has a merchant platform that lets sellers integrate directly with the platform. This gives small retailers an equal voice with the consumer. Google and Amazon started like this before sponsored ads started appearing and dominating search results.
The crucial difference with other AI assistants is the integration with Amazon, providing a vast selection of products and marketplace supply, which all other AI assistants except Perplexity and Rufus will struggle to match.The rise of AI shopping assistants disrupts e-commerce shopping behaviour. Whether it becomes the default option for online shoppers is to be decided, but they're not going away, and we need to be prepared.
