Will AI shopping kill the supermarket website?

As far as hubristic announcements go, Walmart’s was a beauty. In October, the US giant excitedly announced it was “ushering in the next generation of retail”. The supermarket had just penned a deal with OpenAI to allow customers to not only plan meals, review recommendations, find inspiration and compare products, but also “simply chat and buy” within a ChatGPT AI conversation.

“For many years now, e-commerce shopping experiences have consisted of a search bar and a long list of item responses. That is about to change,” said Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart Inc, at the time.

Enabling the change was ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout feature, launched a month prior. It allowed users to make their purchase – actually complete the transaction – right there within the chat.

As the headline of a story in Fortune covering the deal put it: “Your website is living on borrowed time in the age of AI.”

But it appears reports of the website’s death were greatly exaggerated. Walmart has already pulled the plug on Instant Checkout after some massively underwhelming results.

“By this time next month, you will not see that experience any more,” the retail giant’s EVP of AI acceleration, product & design, Daniel Danker, revealed on a recent conference call.

OpenAI also says it’s “moving away” from the feature. “Users can discover and evaluate products in ChatGPT, but purchases are completed on merchant-owned websites or apps,” it explained.

So, what happened? What does it mean for the grocery website? And what is the future of the online store?

Several feverishly hyped technologies that promised to bump off the browser have barely made a mark. Take the Metaverse, and Mark Zuckerberg’s grand vision – tentatively shared by the likes of Coca-Cola, Cheetos and Wendy’s – that we would all soon be working, socialising and shopping in VR goggles.

Is anyone actually using it?

Meta last month announced that it will end development on Horizon Worlds, the virtual world our avatars would all be interacting in. It’s being downgraded to a mobile app this summer (the project has cost the company an estimated $80bn since launch in 2021).

There’s also shopping by voice. Only last week, Amazon launched an update to Alexa, claiming it to be “smarter, more conversational” and able to “actually get things done for you”, but adoption is still low.

“For years, it was touted as the next big thing,” says Matt Sherwen, MD of digital transformation consultancy Sherwen Studios, “but it’s a good example of where innovation hasn’t yet fully landed.”

Agentic commerce feels different, though. “It isn’t just a new form of technology,” Sherwen says. “It’s a fundamental shift in how we expect consumer behaviours to change.” The issue is that “right now, customers aren’t ready for this level of change”, he explains.

Walmart’s customers certainly aren’t. The supermarket made some 200,000 items available to buy within ChatGPT – and later told Wired conversion rates for purchases made inside the AI platform were three times lower than when users clicked through to its website.

“Walmart was the original launch partner for Instant Checkout. This wasn’t a peripheral test,” says Matt Wurst, CMO of tech firm Genuin. “And Walmart’s willingness to go on record with a 3x conversion gap signals something real about the state of consumer behaviour in chatbot-driven commerce.”

The reluctance boils down to trust. “Even though selection, speed and price are very tangible ways to rank, trust is an incredibly important part of [the] journey,” Walmart’s Danker said. Despite the growth in AI, grocery websites are still miles ahead on that front.

Will consumers trust AI?

Trust in AI agents is, for now, low. March research from Billion Dollar Boy found only 35% of consumers believe AI provides quality product recommendations, while 63% are uncomfortable with AI using their browsing and purchase history to deliver recommendations. Feeding it your bank details is a step too far for most.

Even if AI is increasingly the place where shoppers discover and compare products, “that doesn’t make websites less important”, says Matthew Trattles, VP of product at shipping software firm ShipStation.

“Every time a consumer interacts with your brand inside ChatGPT… ChatGPT gets smarter, not you”

Matt Wurst, Genuin

In many ways, AI has actually elevated their importance, “because when a customer clicks through, the role of the website shifts to trust-building. It’s where shoppers confirm the product is right, the brand is credible and the overall experience meets their expectations. In short, they’re not disappearing, but they are becoming more critical in the final moment of truth”.

AI does mean the retailer website or app is “less often the starting point”, says Frances Dennis, CMO at digital marketing agency Brandwidth, “but that doesn’t make owned channels less important”.

“Even if transactions begin within AI interfaces, brands will still need controlled environments where they can shape experience more deliberately,” she adds. “Once the discovery phase is done, people are looking for reassurance before making a decision, and that’s where owned channels still play a critical role.”

Grocers, of course, want shoppers to spend time on their sites rather than with an AI agent. Ed Bradley, CGO at Virtualstock, says retailers “spend huge amounts on marketing to get people on their site – and once they’re there, they know how to monetise that”.

Even if an AI agent can fill a basket with all the ingredients for a recipe, they aren’t adept at tempting shoppers to add extra items or grab bargains.

“The last thing [grocers] want is someone effectively shouting their order at the door, taking one product and leaving,” Bradley says. “They want customers to browse, engage and be guided across products.”

What’s more, grocers should remain wary of handing over the customer relationship, says Wurst.

“The pitch sounds reasonable: meet customers where they are,” he says. “But here’s what nobody’s saying out loud: every time a consumer interacts with your brand inside ChatGPT… ChatGPT gets smarter, not you.”

Shopper expectation

Nonetheless, it’s hard to ignore the third of consumers who now prefer to start or support shopping in AI chat apps, according to a February Valtech survey. March research by Kantar found a third of people would buy directly through AI tools rather than click to a retailer website.

Even if websites “remain the ‘default location’ for the traditional grocery shop”, retailers realise shoppers expect to be able to make purchases across multiple channels – be it ChatGPT, a TV advert or a TikTok video, says Sherwen.

It’s getting easier to offer those options thanks to developments like Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), launched in January. UCP is a new open standard for agentic commerce – a common language for agents and systems to communicate across any platform or channel. That means different online stores, apps and platforms work to a universally accepted set of rules regarding products, prices, baskets and payments, making integrations across channels far easier.

“If shoppers can receive the same loyalty and membership benefits across integrated platforms as they would on a retailer’s own website, UCP helps create continuity and trust,” Sherwen said. “It doesn’t matter where the shopper starts or finishes their journey, because the experience feels joined-up and cohesive.”

Walmart is hoping to achieve that cohesion with its evolved approach to AI. Rather than ditching the tech altogether, it’s embedding its own AI chatbot, Sparky, within ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. Every time the AI serves up a product sold at Walmart, “when a customer taps it, it will open up Sparky, and Sparky will take over the shopping journey”, Danker explained.

Early tests are promising. Internal data from Walmart’s pilot programme, reported by Inc, suggest users who access Sparky through ChatGPT complete purchases at roughly 70% of the rate of those using Walmart.com directly. So, not as good as the website. But better than Instant Checkout.

“Traffic used to flow to websites and apps by default – but that era is ending”

Ultimately, websites need to be “dual-purpose”: welcoming to both human and AI visitors, says Simon Wharton, founder of e-commerce agency PushOn.

“On one hand, they remain a shopfront for humans, rich with content, storytelling and UX,” Wharton says. “On the other, they’re rapidly becoming structured, machine-readable product databases designed to serve AI agents, marketplaces and third-party ecosystems. Build for humans first, and ensure your product data is rich, structured, and future-ready. That’s what will enable you to adapt, whatever the interface looks like.”

Other channels – be it conversational AI or social commerce – will grow. And another ‘revolution’ from a billionaire tech bro will inevitably come along shortly.

Undoubtedly, then, websites will need to work harder to be the go-to channel for shoppers. “The website and the app aren’t dying. They’re just becoming a destination brands need to earn,” Wurst says. “Traffic used to flow there by default – but that era is ending.”

So retailers must be proactive in ensuring their website, app and other owned environments “deliver something the intermediary can’t replicate” he concludes.

“Grocers have a structural advantage here that most retail categories don’t: habitual, high-frequency, high-intent shopping. That’s a foundation for building genuine destinations. The risk is assuming that advantage protects you from disruption. It doesn’t.”