Woolworths has upgraded the AI assistant available via its shopping app.

Moving beyond a customer service tool, the upgraded Olive AI assistant is promoted as a personal helper that takes the stress out of the weekly shop. New features include:

• Personalised meal planning and shopping. Olive can now help customers create entire weekly meal plans based on their preferences. It can also act as a personal shopping assistant for everything from everyday essentials to special occasions, like planning a birthday party.
• Budget support. Olive can identify specials and ‘smart swaps’ to help families save money on their weekly shop.

Alongside the upgrades to Olive, the Woolworths app is also helping to cut down time spent creating a shopping list or building a basket with two new features, including:

• Snap & Shop. Customers can now take a photo of a handwritten list or a recipe from a magazine, and the app instantly turns it into a shopping list. 
• Smart Baskets. To enable customers to build a basket faster, the app now predicts recurring weekly items and suggests ‘smart additions’ based on a customer’s past shopping habits.

“Our customers are telling us they want grocery shopping to be faster and more intuitive, so we are leaning into that feedback to take our digital tools to the next level,” says Woolworths Group Managing Director of eComX and Chief Digital & Analytics Officer Amitabh Mall.

“We’ve designed the new Olive to make sure technology remains a helper and not a decider. While Olive can do the heavy lifting to suggest products and build a basket, customers will remain in complete control, reviewing and approving all items before checkout.

“This is a massive step forward that will change how people shop with us. It’s about using technology to take the hassle out of the weekly shop, whether it’s sticking to a strict weekly budget, hunting for fresh lunchbox inspiration, or organising a weekend BBQ.”

The updated Olive experience, powered by Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise, will be rolling out to all customers using the Woolworths app in pick-up and delivery mode this month.