Albertsons has revealed that its conversational AI tools are helping generate higher average order values as cost and value take centre stage in shopper’s minds. In an otherwise challenging year for the grocery chain, news that its pre-order sales increased has been a welcome relief from struggling in-person shop sales, as it deals with a “more cautious consumer” during inflation fluctuations.
Companies like Albertsoms are moving on from AI experimentation and now expect measurable financial returns from it, prioritising the highest value use cases rather than spending time on testing. Businesses are starting to understand where customers prefer to engage, allowing them to take a more nuanced approach to AI investment.
This is evident with Albertson’s latest figures, where conversational searches helped average order values increase by 10%. Meanwhile, its recipe and dietary AI tools also produced 26% higher AOVs.
Yes, conversational AI is helping make shopping more convenient, but the key question businesses are asking is whether the technology is truly changing customer behaviour and boosting basket value across the market.
How conversational AI is changing product discovery
By replacing traditional keyword search and filters with personalised discovery, AI-powered product discovery is changing the ecommerce game. Through technologies including machine learning and natural language processing, AI helps businesses understand what shoppers want, rather than simply matching keywords.
It can interpret conversational searches and personalise recommendations to continuously improve these findings, largely based on clicks, browsing, and purchases. In turn, this reduces friction, helping shoppers find their relevant products faster, leading to improved conversions.
According to Albertsons Senior Vice President of Digital Shopping Experiences, Jill Pavlovich, the grocery chain is reaping the benefits from its AI investments.
“We see anywhere from a 10% lift in average order value when they [customers] use standard conversational searching and about a 26% lift in average order value when they use more comprehensive assistants to find their recipes, find the ingredients that match their dietary preferences.”
This comes after Albertsons announced it was expecting failing sales this year due to changing consumer behaviour. However, AI-powered experiences are at the centre of improving the customer experience, according to Albertsons, demonstrated by its new Safeway Plugin within ChatGPT.
Jill Pavlovich commented, “We are on a mission to power our customers at every touchpoint with AI to deliver a seamless shopping experience that’s faster, easier and more enjoyable.”
Pavlovich continued, “Research tells us that consumers are increasingly interested in using AI to help with grocery shopping. By enabling our plugin in ChatGPT, we are making grocery shopping as simple as having a conversation by meeting our customers when and how they choose to shop.”
Ecommerce is moving from static product search to more dynamic product discovery, relying on AI to help merchants better understand shopper intent and adapt the experience in real time.
Turning AI investment into commercial value
Albertsons’ AI strategy gives us a real-world example of how retailers are attempting to move from experimentation towards measurable commercial outcomes. By making product data, pricing, availability, and fulfilment systems ‘agent ready,’ the potential impact for retailers can be significant. Furthermore, embedding AI into daily pricing and promotions, treating retail media as a core business, rather than a pilot, and restructuring operating models are all crucial for ongoing success, allowing AI-generated insights to inform more commercial decisions.
According to a McKinsey report, some retailers are already seeing substantial returns with the implementation of AI shopping tools. Figures revealed an increase of conversion rates by over 50%, while AI-driven pricing has been improving gross margins by two to three percent.
Predictive assortment models are reducing markdowns and stockouts by 15 to 30%, and AI-powered supply-chain systems have helped reduce inventory costs by up to 20%. The findings make it clear that marketers and retailers can gain more value when AI connects customer data and personalisation rather than being deployed individually.
At Albertsons, Pavlovich highlighted four key areas of AI investment: digital customer experiences, merchandising intelligence, staff empowerment and supply-chain optimisation, all aimed at strengthening the company’s competitive position. AI is now being treated as a commercial strategy, not just a customer-facing tool.
A new era of e-commerce is emerging but it is not one defined by technology alone. The true value comes from how well businesses integrate AI into areas like marketing, customer experiences, and pricing, alongside human judgement.
These questions will be central to discussions across the DMWF agenda, including at its New York conference this September. Here, marketers will be examining how AI can move from experimentation into measurable commercial value.
AI has strengthened Albertsons’ performance in 2026, although it has not yet completely transformed its top or bottom line. As AI systems become more sophisticated and learn from growing volumes of customer and business data, their value is likely to increase, as Albertsons has discovered. Looking ahead, those who treat AI as a core part of how their business operates will be better positioned to gain a competitive advantage.
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