Grocers Integrate AI Into Digital Platforms to Boost Omnichannel Engagement

In an effort to stay ahead in a competitive market, grocers are leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance their consumer-facing digital platforms, making the experience more engaging and frictionless.

Technology provider eGrowcery announced Wednesday (July 10) the availability of its AI tools for grocers to personalize recipes using ingredients from their product catalogues to niche consumers segments’ preferences, integrating them with add-to-cart functionality. The move enables grocers to leverage contextual commerce more effectively to drive sales.

“We are always seeking to improve the shopper experience, drive additional sales for our retailers and him them grow market share,” eGrowcery CEO Patrick Hughes said in a statement. “Our approach to this recipe initiative does just that and more by creating a deep and powerful approach to provide shoppers with what they want when and where they want it.”

Major players in the grocery sector are harnessing the power of AI to provide personalized shopping experiences. One of the biggest challenges for online grocery shopping is replicating the serendipitous product discovery that happens in physical stores, and AI-powered recommendation engines can help spark that sense of novelty.

Grocery giant Kroger, for its part, has integrated AI into its digital platforms to offer more intelligent search functionalities and to target the experience to individual users’ habits and preferences.

“I believe gen AI is already impacting and will continue to impact the grocery industry broadly and in a transformational way,” Yael Cosset, Kroger’s chief information officer and chief digital officer, stated earlier this year. “We continue to use AI and GenAI across the business for improvements such as more relevant creative marketing content, better search outcomes on digital platforms, greater personalization for customers, easier solutions for our associates, and many more areas.”

Indeed, AI can go a long way toward boosting digital sales and omnichannel engagement for grocers. For instance, as of last year, online grocer Hungryroot attributed 70% of its sales to its AI capabilities.

“I very much expect that AI applications in a thin-margin space like grocery will help both with consumer loyalty and with operational efficiency,” Alex Weinstein, the online grocer’s chief digital officer, told PYMNTS in an interview.

Plus, Walmart, the world’s largest grocery retailer, shared at the start of this year how its generative AI search capabilities are improving consumers’ experience on its site and app, offering intelligent recommendations in response to customers’ conversational queries.

“Our objective of using GenAI Search is simple — give time back to our customers to enjoy life instead of spending their days searching, scrolling and tapping,” the retailer stated. “GenAI-powered experiences enable us to be more to our customers — their partners in accomplishing broader missions.”

Key players across industries view AI as essential to meeting consumers’ expectations. For “How Simple, Routine GenAI Use Can Remake Enterprise Marketing,” the June installment of the 2024 CAIO Report, PYMNTS Intelligence surveyed 60 CMOs in April from U.S. firms that generated at least $1 billion in revenue last year. The results revealed that 80% of CMOs think GenAI is extremely important to the customer experience.

Plus, many consumers engage digitally with grocers. The 2024 edition of PYMNTS Intelligence’s “How the World Does Digital” report, which draws from a census-balanced survey of more than 67,000 consumers across 11 countries, revealed that 40% of consumers engage in online grocery shopping at least once a month. Plus, 1 in 5 do so weekly.

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