Target Adds New AI-Powered Shopping Tools – Retail TouchPoints

Target has joined the likes of Nordstrom, Amazon, Etsy and Walmart with the launch of new generative AI-powered shopping tools, including a Gift Finder and digital shopping assistant.

Target Gift Finder Focuses First on Kids’ Toys

The new gen AI-powered Bullseye Gift Finder offers personalized product recommendations to help shoppers quickly zero in on gifts for the kids on their list based on age, hobbies, favorite brands and more. For example, a user can select “2- to 4-year-old” and toys for “creative thinking” and “sensory development.” The tool will search Target’s toy assortment and recommend a lineup of ideas.

The Bullseye Gift Finder is available now on the Target website and app and is currently focused on toys, but the retailer said in a blog post that additional gifts for kids in other categories will be added throughout the season.

Target Tests AI Shopping Assistant for Owned Brands

The retailer also shared that it is testing out a new chat feature called Shopping Assistant on the product display pages of select Target-owned brand items when a customer is logged into their Target.com account.

For products that have the assistant available, shoppers can type a question into the search field and the shopping assistant will help in real time. Questions can include things like “Will this shirt shrink in the wash?” or “Does this product contain artificial fragrance or dye?”

Target Looks to AI, Taylor Swift for Traction

The new digital tools are part of Target’s larger holiday offering, which includes a range of store and digital experiences as well as the retailer’s biggest holiday assortment ever. Over Thanksgiving weekend, Target scored big with its Taylor Swift collaboration, selling nearly 1 million copies of its exclusive Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour Book in the first week it was on sale.

Despite that, Target lowered its profit forecast for Q4 2024 after reporting a sluggish sales increase of just 0.3% in Q3.

But the retailer clearly thinks AI can help with that, at least in part: “We’ll continue testing dozens of additional applications this year and beyond to make working and shopping at the Bullseye even better,” said the company in the blog post, pointing to enhancements it’s already made to its product detail pages with the help of AI, as well as the gen AI-powered Store Companion chatbot it rolled out for store associates this summer.