Looking for the perfect holiday gift? AI wants to help you.
In the past few weeks, OpenAI, Perplexity, Google, Amazon, and Walmart have launched a flurry of AI-powered shopping features, hoping this year’s holiday rush will flow—at least in part—through their new tools.
Between 15% and 30% of online shoppers are expected use generative AI to shop for holiday gifts this year, according to a new survey from Bain.
But Fortune’s testing of some of the platforms suggest that Santa doesn’t need to look for another job quite yet. While the offerings show flashes of magic, they may need a little more time before shoppers can rely on them for the real heavy lifting.
OpenAI’s Shopping Research is sleek, if not seamless
Last week, in a penthouse venue overlooking lower Manhattan, more than a dozen journalists clustered around rows of monitors as OpenAI unveiled its latest offering, called Shopping Research. Powered by a new ChatGPT-5 mini model and available across ChatGPT plans, it does deep product reconnaissance for you across the web.
Just describe what you want—“a gift for my four-year-old niece who loves art,” “Black Friday deals for these sneakers,” “a petite red holiday dress that’s festive but not over-the-top”—and within minutes, it produces a personalized interactive shopping guide.
The user interface is genuinely beautiful—a big step up from ChatGPT’s bare-bones text responses. You get quick quizzes, modern and sleek product cards you can thumbs-up or thumbs-down, and a much more guided experience overall. But the model needs a few minutes to think, which means it’s not ideal for quick-hit shopping.
OpenAI warned that Shopping Research can still make mistakes, and you can’t buy directly through ChatGPT. The new interface is not connected to the company’s Instant Checkout, the one-click buying feature OpenAI announced earlier this year—which only works with a small number of participating brands, and is not yet a seamless, universal checkout experience.
Josh McGrath, a researcher on the OpenAI team that developed Shopping Research, told me he has seen the best results for products with lots of options for specifications that serve specific niches—things like backpacks, camping gear, or musical equipment.
Perplexity’s Instant Buy doesn’t live up to the hype
Meanwhile, Perplexity is touting its own AI personal shopper, which it rolled out this week as a one-click Instant Buy feature with PayPal. The pitch is tantalizing: Perplexity says the chatbot will remember past interactions to personalize recommendations, and that the PayPal tie-in keeps merchants in the retail loop—but the release doesn’t live up to the hype.
When I tested it, Instant Buy wasn’t available on my Enterprise account, and on a free personal account only a handful of brands—and just a few products within those brands—actually offered the Instant Buy option. A Perplexity spokesperson said the feature would roll out to many more products and brands over the next few weeks, adding that merchants select which items to display from their catalogs.
Michelle Gill, PayPal’s general manager for small business and financial services, said the tool isn’t yet intended to replace all other forms of holiday shopping. “It would be nice to roll out to everyone at the same time, but at the same time, if you had a random, delightful experience [with Instant Buy], you might share it with friends,” she said. For now, she added, it can be used more purposefully: For example, Instant Buy is currently available for some Abercrombie & Fitch, Ashley Furniture and Fabletics products, with Gap and Reebok on the way.
“We’re not yet at the point where more than 50% of experiences are going to happen this way,” Gill said.
Google’s AI Mode has clear limits
As for Google’s latest AI shopping updates, available in the Gemini app and through Search’s AI Mode, there are also clear limitations for now. AI Mode’s offering, announced two weeks ago, allows users to visit retailer sites, see historic pricing data, and track price changes. Its agentic checkout feature allows you to track the price of a product and give Google permission to buy it for you on the retailer’s site, but only a few merchants are currently participating, including Wayfair, Chewy, Quince, and select Shopify merchants.
Many of the most unique features of the new interface won’t be fully rolled out this holiday season, including the option to ask Google to call stores automatically on your behalf. That feature is currently “available for select regions and languages and may not be available for all users,” according to the site.
There is also a major gap in the options from OpenAI, Perplexity, and Google: Amazon prevents all three from scraping its site, blocking them from offering options from or comparison shopping against Amazon’s massive product catalog—a significant blind spot.
Amazon, Walmart and Target are also on the hunt for your AI shopping dollars
But Amazon, as well as Big Box behemoths Walmart and Target, are also rolling out AI options, if you’re looking to experiment.
Amazon’s AI assistant Rufus, built into its app and website, got a big upgrade last week. It now offers to search for products based on activity, event, purpose. It can automatically add items to your cart, tell you if you’re getting the best price, find top deals every day of the year, auto-buy items at a set price, or even take a handwritten shopping list and add the items to your cart. It remains to be seen whether the company has responded to complaints around accuracy and generic answers.
Walmart recently launched Sparky, its own AI shopping assistant, which offers conversational assistance: For example, you can tell Sparky you’re planning an event (a party or a holiday dinner, for example) and it will suggest a cart filled with items you need, including food and decorations. However, Sparky has also struggled with accuracy problems, buggy behavior and limits within Walmart’s product catalog. Walmart also recently partnered with OpenAI, which means Walmart products can be bought directly through a chat interface within ChatGPT, using Instant Checkout.
Two weeks ago, Target also rolled out improvements to its AI-powered gift finder, along with integrations that let shoppers browse or buy Target products directly inside ChatGPT, with curated suggestions based on themes, budgets, or recipient profiles.
If you’re trying out AI this holiday season, it’s wise to keep your expectations low and just experiment. All of these retailers and tech companies are moving fast—and the tools are improving—but you will likely still need to go directly to many websites or hit the stores in person this year.
Next year, AI might give Santa a run for his money.
