How AI is disrupting shopping

　　人工智能如何改变购物方式

　　Looking for Christmas gifts Just ask a chatbot

　　在找圣诞礼物吗？问问聊天机器人就行啦

　　The time of year has come again when gift-givers trudge around shops and scroll endlessly through e-commerce websites to find suitable Christmas presents for their loved ones. Some will enjoy browsing. But many will not. A growing number will happily outsource much of the process to artificial intelligence (AI).

　　一年中的这个时候又到了，送礼的人们在商店里费力地转悠，在电商网站上没完没了地浏览，为他们心爱的人寻找合适的圣诞礼物。有些人会享受这种浏览的过程，但很多人不会。越来越多的人会乐意将这一过程的大部分工作交给人工智能（AI）来做。

　　Chatbots offer a personal shopper for all. They can listen to what a user wants, produce a shortlist of products and help with comparisons. This holiday season around two-thirds of consumers in rich countries, and five-sixths of those aged 18-24, plan to use AI to help them shop, according to a survey by Shopify, a provider of e-commerce tools. A study from McKinsey, a consultancy, found that the second-most-common use for ChatGPT-like “generative” AI in America is for shopping advice, behind general research but ahead of writing assistance (see chart 1). Increasingly, consumers can even make purchases directly through a chatbot. By 2030 McKinsey reckons that $3trn-5trn of shopping worldwide will be conducted through such “agents”. Retail is on the cusp of its next big upheaval.

　　聊天机器人为所有人提供了私人购物助手服务。它们能够倾听用户的需求，生成产品短名单，并协助进行比较。电商工具提供商Shopify的一项调查显示，在这个假日季，富裕国家约三分之二的消费者以及18-24岁年龄段五分之六的消费者计划使用人工智能来辅助购物。咨询公司麦肯锡的一项研究发现，在美国，类ChatGPT的“生成式”人工智能第二常见的用途是提供购物建议，仅次于一般性研究，但排在写作辅助之前（见图1）。消费者甚至越来越能直接通过聊天机器人进行购物。麦肯锡预计，到2030年，全球将有3万亿至5万亿美元的购物活动通过这类“代理”完成。零售业正处于下一场重大变革的风口浪尖。

　　AI firms are betting that their technology will disrupt shopping just as e-commerce did in the internet age. Although OpenAI has deprioritised efforts to integrate ads into ChatGPT, it has struck deals with Shopify and Etsy, an online marketplace for artisanal wares, to allow merchants to sell their products through its chatbot in return for a fee. Google, whose search engine has long been the starting point for many shoppers, is also eyeing the market for so-called agentic commerce. Users in America can have its AI tools call shops to check stock, track the prices of products and make some purchases on their behalf when deals come up.

　　人工智能公司们打赌，他们的技术将会像互联网时代的电子商务那样颠覆购物领域。尽管OpenAI已经降低了在ChatGPT中整合广告的优先级，但它已经与Shopify以及手工艺品在线市场Etsy达成协议，允许商家通过其聊天机器人销售产品，以此收取费用。长期以来，谷歌的搜索引擎一直是许多购物者的起点，该公司也在关注所谓的“代理商务”市场。美国的用户可以让谷歌的人工智能工具打电话给商店查询库存、追踪产品价格，并在有优惠时代表他们进行一些采购。

　　Retailers, however, are not standing idly by. Many e-commerce websites have bristled at the idea of an AI agent getting between them and their customers. Amazon, the world’s biggest online mall, which makes roughly a tenth of its revenue from ads, is eager to keep shoppers coming to its website. It has blocked OpenAI’s crawlers from collecting information, and is suing Perplexity, another AI firm, claiming that its Comet browser has been prancing around Amazon’s website masquerading as a human (which Perplexity denies).

　　然而，零售商们并非袖手旁观。许多电子商务网站对人工智能代理介入他们与客户之间的想法感到不满。亚马逊作为全球最大的在线商城，其约十分之一的收入来自广告业务，因此迫切希望能让购物者继续访问其网站。该公司已阻止OpenAI的爬虫收集信息，并且正在起诉另一家人工智能公司Perplexity，声称其Comet浏览器伪装成人类在亚马逊网站上肆意活动（而Perplexity对此予以否认）。

　　A surprising consequence of all this may be that, as AI upends online shopping, physical stores gain renewed importance. With browsing shifting away from retailers’ and brands’ own websites, shops with striking displays and charming assistants will offer another way for companies to shape how they are perceived. Three-quarters of the respondents in Shopify’s survey this year said that they value human interactions when shopping, up from just over half in 2024. Plenty of shoppers still want to touch and feel certain types of products, such as clothes. And at this time of year, heading to the high street offers a chance to soak up some festive cheer.

　　这一切带来的一个令人惊讶的结果可能是，随着人工智改变在线购物，实体店的重要性将重新提升。随着浏览行为从零售商和品牌自身的网站转移，那些拥有引人注目的陈列和亲切店员的商店，将为企业提供另一种塑造自身形象的方式。在Shopify今年的调查中，四分之三的受访者表示他们在购物时重视人际互动，这一比例高于2024年的略超一半。许多购物者仍然希望触摸和感受某些类型的产品，比如衣服。而且在每年的这个时候，前往商业街还能让人感受到一些节日的欢乐氛围。