The new feature works in a few different ways. You can use text prompts, as you would with any other AI chatbot, to ask it to create a grocery list for you. Or you can upload a photo of your shopping list and ask it to fill your cart with all your favorite items based on your order history. You can be as generic as you are – “milk, eggs, cereal” – and the bot will create a list with all your favorite brands.
And that’s just to get you started. Uber says that in the coming months, Cart Assistant will add more features, including “full recipe inspiration, meal planning and the ability to ask follow-up questions, and expansion to retail partners.”
But like all chatbots, Uber acknowledges that the Cart Assistant can make mistakes, and urges users to double-check and confirm the results before placing any orders.
It will also only work at certain grocery stores, with Uber announcing interoperability with Albertsons, Aldi, CVS, Kroger, Safeway, Sprouts, Safeway, Walgreens, and Wegmans at launch. The company says that more stores will be added in the future.
Uber has partnered with OpenAI to integrate Uber Eats into its suite of apps. But Uber spokesman Richard Ford declined to say whether the AI company’s technology is powering the new chatbot in Uber Eats. “Cart Assistant draws on publicly available LLM models as well as Uber’s own AI stack,” Ford said in an email.
Uber is rushing to add more AI-powered features to its apps, including robotaxis with Waymo and sidewalk delivery robots in several cities. The company has also recently revived its AI Labs to collaborate with its partners to create better products using delivery and customer data.
