On Monday, 6 July, Penny greeted Pick n Pay's asap! on-demand delivery app customers as the company's newest AI-powered grocery shopping assistant. Powered by Google's Gemini AI model, Penny was announced as South Africa's first fully integrated AI-driven grocery shopping companion for asap!.

This AI assistant allows customers to build grocery baskets using voice notes, text or  photos instead of manually searching for products through the search bar. Optimised to improve asap! users' online experience, Penny aims to make Pick n Pay customers' digital shopping journey as seamless as possible.

According to Pick n Pay, Penny can:

  • read handwritten shopping lists

  • recognise recipes and product photos

  • suggest recipes

  • recommend substitutions

  • meal plan

  • apply budget-conscious shopping, and

  • personalise recommendations.

Penny's implementation  in Pick n Pay's digital retail points to a change in the South African online user's shopping experience — one  that will likely follow in other online stores. Instead of using the search bar to find and decide on items, scrolling through pages of products, shoppers can expect to simply tell an AI assistant what they need in natural language.

In doing so, the AI assistant reduces much of the manual effort involved in online grocery shopping. Customers simply describe a meal, enter shopping lists and even their budget,  and the AI assistant will do the rest, building a basket around those requirements.

Other retailers, both globally and nationally, have also been experimenting with generative AI to simplify shopping experiences. In fact, just last year, Shoprite Holdings invested in AI while its Checkers Sixty60 platform — a dominant player in the South African grocery delivery space — has already introduced its own in-app AI companion, Pixie.

Penny's launch therefore marks more than a technological advancement for Pick n Pay asap! — it also forms part of the retailer's  broader effort to strengthen its digital offering as it works to regain market share.

 

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*Image courtesy of Canva and Tech Central

**Information sourced IOL, Business Tech and Reuter