The news: Meta Platforms is testing a shopping assistant within its chatbot, expanding its move into AI-mediated product discovery. The feature presents users seeking product suggestions with a carousel of images that includes details such as brand, retailer, price, and brief bullet-point explanations for why each item was recommended, per Bloomberg. The feature is rolling out to select US users of the Meta AI web browser.

Recommendations are tailored based on information Meta already knows about users, including location and the gender it infers from their name.

There is no in-app checkout option, but users can click through to merchant websites to continue browsing or complete a purchase.

Why it matters: The test puts Meta in more direct competition with several major AI players.

• OpenAI’s Instant Checkout, launched in late September, allows users to complete purchases directly within ChatGPT.
• Google rolled out agentic checkout ahead of the holiday season and also offers additional AI-powered shopping features, including conversational shopping in its AI mode and an agent that can call nearby stores to check inventory.
• Perplexity relaunched its agentic shopping tool last fall, expanding access beyond Pro subscribers and building on its “Buy With Pro” feature and using memory from past searches to better detect shopping intent and personalize results.

Implications: While interest in AI and agentic shopping assistants is growing, actual usage remains relatively limited. For example, just 2% of US digital buyers said they started their online product searches with an AI assistant or chatbot in a September survey by CivicScience and EMARKETER. That gap between curiosity and behavior highlights a clear opportunity for retailers and brands willing to experiment, refine their product data, and ensure their assortments surface effectively in AI-driven results.

For Meta and its rivals, however, interest alone won’t translate into dominance. Because the category is still nascent, consumer habits are far from fixed. The platforms that offer the most seamless, accurate, and trustworthy experience—through stronger personalization, reliable inventory data, frictionless checkout, and tight merchant integration—will be best positioned to shape behavior and earn lasting loyalty.