Latest news with #AdamFry
Business Insider
29-04-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
I tried ChatGPT's new shopping feature. It's efficient, just not built for picky shoppers like me.
OpenAI is jumping into the online shopping game. The company said on Monday it rolled out a new shopping feature for ChatGPT. Users can ask for product recommendations and receive results with images, reviews, and direct links. ChatGPT will provide a curated list of products based on what it remembers about users' preferences and what it pulls from online reviews, said Adam Fry, who leads ChatGPT's search product team, in a prelaunch demo for Wired. Users are then sent to the retailer's site to check out. The feature works across categories like fashion, electronics, and home goods. Unlike Google Shopping's sponsored links, the product listings shown in ChatGPT are not paid placements, Fry said. I tried out the new shopping feature to see if it could make shopping smarter and easier. It was helpful, but I missed a few parts of non-AI online shopping. Getting ChatGPT's techy recommendation As an audiophile, I love a good pair of headphones. I asked ChatGPT, "What are the best headphones under $500 USD?" The response was impressive — and a bit overwhelming. It broke down options into categories like best wireless noise-canceling headphones, best audiophile and studio headphones, and budget-friendly picks. It even gave me a handy "Top Picks Summary," which helped cut through the clutter. The Sony WH-1000XM5 clinched the "Best Overall" — a model I'd heard people rave about. But ChatGPT didn't list where I could buy them, so I followed up with, "Where can I buy them at the best price?" This time, ChatGPT served up live prices and retailer links in Singapore, where I live. ChatGPT also suggested a rival to the Sony XM5 — the Bose QuietComfort Ultra. I wanted to compare both in detail, so I asked: "What's the difference between the Sony WH-1000XM5 and the Bose QuietComfort Ultra?" ChatGPT came back with a side-by-side comparison that felt lifted from a high-end tech blog, covering everything from noise cancellation to fast-charging stats. One gripe, though: I had no idea where the information came from. It said Bose had "plush cushioning and lighter clamp force," while Sony offered "synthetic leather" and a lighter build. Those were objective details, but who decided Bose was more comfortable? What if I actually like the snug fit of Sony's headband? Buying a really personal item: running shoes Next, I put ChatGPT to the test with running shoes. For me, this was make-or-break. I'm obsessed with running shoes. I've gone too deep into the rabbit hole of reading shoe reviews, binge-watching YouTube breakdowns, and analyzing specs like a full-time job. I told ChatGPT I was looking for shoes for easy, short-distance runs under $200. My search yielded a solid list: Nike Air Zoom Pegasus 41, Brooks Ghost 16, Hoka Clifton 9, ASICS Gel-Nimbus 26, and New Balance Fresh Foam X 1080v14. All great picks, but I was a little disappointed that my favourites, like the Adidas Ultraboost, didn't show up. When I refined my search and mentioned that I was a neutral pronator — my foot rolls naturally to absorb shock evenly — ChatGPT stuck to the same lineup with short, summarized notes about each shoe's strengths. I asked ChatGPT to break down the differences between the Brooks Ghost 16 and Hoka Clifton 9 since they were "Best Overall" and "Best Cushioning." The side-by-side comparison covered everything from cushioning and stability to ride feel. But one big thing was missing: visuals. As someone who cares a lot about how my shoes look — the sole design, the lacing, the vibe — I missed scrutinizing images beyond the four at the top. I don't blame ChatGPT for giving me a wordy review. But for something as personal as running shoes, I'd still rather scroll through a store's website and rummage through every photo and video. Google vs ChatGPT Google's shopping experience still feels a lot more fun. Although there are paid ads, there are also endless visuals — different colorways, angles, and even photos from real buyers showing off their pairs in the wild. Plus, I love seeing user reviews. They're raw, relatable, and sometimes way more helpful than expert reviews. ChatGPT wins in the heavy-lifting department. It provides detailed comparisons and spec breakdowns without making you dig through 10 different websites. It feels like an extension of what ChatGPT already does best — gathering info and summarizing it neatly. An AI built solely for shopping — or OpenAI's next version of this feature — might provide a better experience. I'm still an old-school shopper. I gather all possible sneaker info online, then head to the store to do a few laps. No review can tell me the best — for me — pair until it's on my feet.
WIRED
28-04-2025
- Business
- WIRED
OpenAI Adds Shopping to ChatGPT in a Challenge to Google
OpenAI is launching a shopping experience inside of ChatGPT, complete with product picks and buy buttons. WIRED spoke with Adam Fry, the company's search product lead, to ask how it all works. Photo-Illustration:OpenAI announced today that users will soon be able to buy products through ChatGPT. The rollout of shopping buttons for AI-powered search queries will come to everyone, whether they are a signed-in user or not. Shoppers will not be able to check out inside of ChatGPT; instead they will be redirected to the merchant's website to finish the transaction. In a prelaunch demo for WIRED, Adam Fry, the ChatGPT search product lead at OpenAI, demonstrated how the updated user experience could be used to help people using the tool for product research decide which espresso machine or office chair to buy. The product recommendations shown to prospective shoppers are based on what ChatGPT remembers about a user's preferences as well as product reviews pulled from across the web. Fry says ChatGPT users are already running over a billion web searches per week, and that people are using the tool to research a wide breadth of shopping categories, like beauty, home goods, and electronics. The product results in ChatGPT for best office chairs, one of WIRED's rigorously tested and widely read buying guides, included a link to our reporting in the sources tab. (Although the business side of Conde Nast, WIRED's parent company, signed a licensing deal last year with OpenAI so the company can surface our content, the editorial team retains independence in how we cover the startup.) Searching for espresso machines inside ChatGPT. Image Courtesy of OpenAI The new user experience of buying stuff inside of ChatGPT shares many similarities to Google Shopping. In the interfaces of both, when you click on the image of a budget office chair that tickles your fancy, multiple retailers, like Amazon and Walmart, are listed on the right side of the screen, with buttons for completing the purchase. There is one major difference between shopping through ChatGPT versus Google, for now: the results you see in OpenAI searches are not paid placements, but organic results. 'They are not ads,' says Fry. 'They are not sponsored.' While some product recommendations that appear inside of Google Shopping show up because retailers paid for them to be there, that's just one mechanism Google uses to decide which products to list in Shopping searches. Websites that publish product reviews are constantly tweaking the content of their buying recommendations in an effort to convince the opaque Google algorithm that the website includes high quality reviews of products that have been thoroughly tested by real humans. Google favors those more considered reviews in search results and will rank them highly when a user is researching a product. To land one of the top spots in a Google search can lead to more of those users buying the product through the website, potentially earning the publisher millions of dollars in affiliate revenue. So, how does ChatGPT choose which products to recommend? Why were those specific espresso machines and office chairs listed first when the user typed the prompt? 'It's not looking for specific signals that are in some algorithm,' says Fry. According to him, this will be a shopping experience that's more personalized and conversational, rather than keyword-focused. 'It's trying to understand how people are reviewing this, how people are talking about this, what the pros and cons are,' says Fry. If you say that you prefer only buying black clothes from a specific retailer, then ChatGPT will supposedly store that information in its memory the next time you ask for advice about what shirt to buy, giving you recommendations that align with your tastes. The reviews that ChatGPT features for products will pull from a blend of online sources, including editorial publishers like WIRED as well as user-generated forums like Reddit. Fry says that users can tell ChatGPT which types of reviews to prioritize when curating a list of recommended products. One of the most pressing questions for online publishers with this new release is likely how affiliate revenue will work in this situation. Currently, if you read WIRED's review of the best office chairs and decide to purchase one through our link, we get a cut of the revenue and it supports our journalism. How will affiliate revenue work inside of ChatGPT shopping when the tool recommends an office chair that OpenAI knows is a good pick because WIRED, among others, gave it a good review? 'We are going to be experimenting with a whole bunch of different ways that this can work,' says Fry. He didn't share specific plans, saying that providing high quality recommendations is OpenAI's first priority right now, and that the company might try different affiliate revenue models in the future. When asked if he sees this as potentially a meaningful revenue drive in the long-term, Fry similarly says that OpenAI is just focused on the user experience first and will iterate on ChatGPT shopping as the startup learns more post-release. OpenAI has big revenue goals; according to reporting from The Information, the company expects to bring in $125 billion in revenue by 2029. Last year, OpenAI had just under $4 billion in revenue. It's unclear how big of part the company expects affiliate revenue to play in reaching that goal. CEO Sam Altman floated the idea of affiliate fees adding to the company's revenue, in a recent interview with Stratechery newsletter writer Ben Thomspon. This is not the first shopping adjacent release from OpenAI in 2025. Its AI agent, called Operator, can take control of web browsers and click around, potentially helping users buy groceries or assist with vacation booking, though my initial impressions found the feature to be fairly clunky at release. Perplexity, one of OpenAI's competitors in AI-powered search, launched 'Buy with Pro' late last year, where users could also shop directly inside of the app. Additionally, the Google Shopping tab currently includes a 'Researched with AI' section for some queries, with summaries of online reviews as well as recommended picks.
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Business Standard
28-04-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
From SEO keywords to chatbots, brands pivot to capture AI-driven traffic
The explosion of artificial intelligence (AI) has kickstarted a new gold rush, for visibility inside AI chatbots. In a race to stay relevant in a fast-changing digital landscape, advertising groups and tech start-ups are scrambling to help brands boost their presence in results generated by artificial intelligence chatbots. The push marks the beginning of a new era of search engine optimisation (SEO), where traditional strategies are being rewritten for a world dominated by generative AI. According to a report by The Financial Times, companies are launching software to monitor how frequently brands appear in AI-driven services like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, and Google's Overviews. Early adopters include fintech company Ramp, job search platform Indeed, and Chivas Brothers, the Pernod Ricard-owned whisky maker, as businesses seek new ways to engage with millions of users now relying on AI tools for information gathering. How brands are trying to ace SEO in an AI-driven world? The technology feeds a range of text prompts into AI chatbots to gauge their sentiment towards brands and analyses the output to create a ranking. This insight allows agencies to recommend strategies for boosting brand mentions within AI-generated responses, in what industry players are calling the next frontier for marketing visibility. The stakes are high. A research by consultancy firm Bain recently revealed that 80 per cent of consumers now depend on AI-written results for at least 40 per cent of their online searches. The study found that organic web traffic has dropped by up to 25 per cent, with approximately 60 per cent of searches concluding without users clicking through to a website. Cracking the code is no simple task. Different AI models surface brands in different ways. ChatGPT, for instance, pulls traditional web data but layers it with its own credibility checks to serve users more 'thoughtful' answers. Traditional media agencies role facing increasing threat As Meta and Google develop self-serve ad tools allowing brands to run marketing campaigns autonomously, the traditional role of media agencies is under threat. Yet, some agencies are seizing the moment by offering AI visibility optimisation services to corporate clients eager to adapt. The approach requires a deep understanding of how different AI models surface information. ChatGPT, for instance, blends traditional web search results with model-based evaluation, ranking sources based on credibility and relevance. Quoting Adam Fry, head of search at OpenAI's ChatGPT, the report said that users are becoming increasingly precise and nuanced with their queries, giving the example of a search for 'a quiet restaurant for a family of five in New York' rather than the more generic 'restaurants in New York'. He explained that ChatGPT introduced an additional layer of intelligence above traditional search, allowing for more sophisticated, context-driven results. Search advertising hit, but Google is coping somehow Yet, amid the buzz about AI stealing traffic, Google's advertising engine is still roaring. Parent company Alphabet on Thursday reported that core search and ad revenues rose nearly 10 per cent to $50.7 billion in the first quarter. The results offered assurance to investors who feared that Google's own Gemini chatbot — or competition from Elon Musk's Grok — might cannibalise the search giant's main business. Still, cracks are visible. AI-native platforms like Perplexity are already experimenting with sponsored 'questions' — offering brands a new but subtle way to influence users inside an AI conversation. As the AI revolution in search continues to unfold, brands and agencies are adapting at speed, recognising that in a world increasingly mediated by intelligent algorithms, only those who deliver genuine value will maintain their visibility. Indian firms also riding high the AI wave A recent study by IBM (in February) revealed that around 59 per cent of Indian enterprises with more than 1,000 employees have already integrated AI into their operations. According to the IBM Global AI Adoption Index 2023, early adopters are setting the pace, with 74 per cent of these companies having ramped up their AI investments over the past two years, particularly in areas such as research and development and workforce reskilling. However, challenges such as finding employees with the necessary skills and addressing ethical concerns continue to hinder broader AI adoption. Tackling these barriers is expected to be a key focus this year, the report had said. In the age of AI, brands are increasingly learning that web visibility can no longer be gamed.
