Despite increasing awareness, AI shopping assistants have yet to achieve widespread adoption in the US. While 43 per cent of Americans are aware of these tools, only 14 per cent have used them. Usage is highest among Gen Z (24 per cent) and parents of children under 18 (21 per cent), whereas just 7 per cent of baby boomers have tried them, according to a new YouGov study.
For current users, key benefits include getting answers to product questions (44 per cent), finding specific items (41 per cent), and locating the best deals (34 per cent). For non-users who are open to trying AI, the most appealing features are price comparisons (67 per cent), evaluating similar products (56 per cent), and accessing product information (55 per cent).
However, trust is a major barrier. Forty-one per cent of Americans say they do not trust AI shopping assistants at all, and only 13 per cent mostly or completely trust them—compared to 53 per cent who trust personal recommendations. Privacy concerns, a preference for human assistance, and fears of upselling further fuel scepticism.
AI shopping assistants remain underused in the US despite 43 per cent awareness, with only 14 per cent having tried them.
Gen Z and parents show the highest adoption.
Users seek answers, deals, and product info, but trust remains low due to privacy concerns and scepticism.
Interest is strongest in clothing, electronics, and groceries.
Wider adoption hinges on building trust and proving real value.
When it comes to shopping categories, consumers are most open to using AI for clothing and accessories (20 per cent), consumer electronics (21 per cent), groceries and household essentials (19 per cent), and travel planning (18 per cent). Interest is much lower for purchases involving finances, vehicles, or pet care.
Retailers such as Walmart and Amazon are already deploying AI tools like Sparky and Rufus to improve customer experience. Yet, the study highlights that broader adoption depends on demonstrating genuine value, safeguarding data, and rebuilding trust—especially among more cautious consumers.
The OpenAI logo appears on a mobile phone in front of a computer screen with random binary data, March 9, 2023, in Boston. Credit: AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File
OpenAI could now be the world’s most valuable startup, ahead of Elon Musk’s SpaceX and TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, after a secondary stock sale designed to retain employees at the ChatGPT maker.
Current and former OpenAI employees sold $6.6 billion in shares to a group of investors, pushing the privately held artificial intelligence company’s valuation to $500 billion, according to a source with knowledge of the deal who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.
The investors buying the shares included Thrive Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group and T. Rowe Price, along with Japanese tech giant SoftBank and the United Arab Emirates’ MGX, the source said Thursday.
The valuation reflects high expectations for the future of AI technology and continues OpenAI’s remarkable trajectory from its start as a nonprofit research lab in 2015.
But with the San Francisco-based company not yet turning a profit, it could also amplify concerns about an AI bubble if the generative AI products made by OpenAI and its competitors don’t meet the expectations of investors pouring billions of dollars into research and development.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has sought to dismiss those concerns, most recently last week, when he toured a massive data center complex being built to run the company’s AI systems in Abilene, Texas.
“Between the ten years we’ve already been operating and the many decades ahead of us, there will be booms and busts,” Altman said after being asked about a bubble. “People will overinvest and lose money, and underinvest and lose a lot of revenue.”
He added that “we’ll make some dumb capital allocations” and there will be short-term ups and downs but that “over the arc that we have to plan over, we are confident that this technology will drive a new wave of unprecedented economic growth,” along with scientific breakthroughs, improvements to quality of life and “new ways to express creativity.”
An entrance to the Stargate artificial intelligence data center complex in Abilene, Texas on Monday, Sept. 22, 2025. Credit: AP Photo/Matt O’Brien
Just this week, the company launched two different business ventures, one a partnership with Etsy and Shopify for online shopping through ChatGPT and another a social media app, Sora, for generating and sharing AI videos.
OpenAI has been struggling to offer investors and staff the same perks and compensation as the publicly traded tech giants with which it competes. Facebook parent Meta Platforms, in particular, has been on a hiring spree for elite AI engineers and in June made a $14.3 billion investment in AI company Scale that recruited its CEO Alexandr Wang.
OpenAI’s for-profit subsidiary, valued at $500 billion, is technically controlled by the board of OpenAI’s nonprofit and both are still bound to pursue the nonprofit’s charitable purpose.
OpenAI’s partnerships with major companies and its plans to change its corporate structure have drawn the scrutiny of regulators, including the attorneys general of California and Delaware, who oversee charitable organizations that operate or are incorporated in their states.
The company has made big deals in recent weeks with Oracle and SoftBank, its partners on a data center venture called Stargate, and with chipmaker Nvidia, which makes the specialized AI chips those data centers need. At the same time, it has lessened its reliance on longtime backer Microsoft.
In September, OpenAI announced it had reached a tentative agreement with Microsoft about the future stake of its nonprofit in its for-profit corporation but released few details.
It also opened applications for nonprofits to apply for $50 million in funding from OpenAI, an effort it launched in response to the recommendations of an advisory board. The grants will go toward projects that increase public understanding of AI, support the design of AI for uses that communities want and increase economic opportunity. The deadline to apply closes on Oct. 8.
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Sacha Vaughan, chief supply chain officer at houseware manufacturer Joseph Joseph, is in a fortunate position – her board recognises the critical role of the supply chain in a digital age, which she suggests isn’t always the case.
“Many brands see the supply chain as simply moving boxes from one place to another,” she says. “The consensus is often that, ‘It’s not that difficult.’ However, we’ve had some pain in the past. The board realises that the supply chain is more than just moving boxes from A to B, and it’s a huge lever for cost control. Therefore, they treat the supply chain strategically.”
Vaughan says this recognition of the importance of product fulfilment isn’t just a result of internal cost pressures. She suggests supply chain chiefs have had an interesting decade, characterised by a series of disruptions, including the coronavirus pandemic, Brexit and the implementation of new tariffs following the change in US administration.
“We’ve been fortunate and unfortunate at the same time,” she says. “The world has been particularly volatile from a supply chain perspective. However, the impact of these disruptions has helped to elevate the supply chain from the basement into the boardroom.”
Embracing supply chain transformation
Vaughan joined Joseph Joseph in February 2025. Having fulfilled senior operations roles with Forma, Charlotte Tilbury and Shiseido, her previous position was as global operations and manufacturing director at Dyson. She was approached about the opportunity to become chief supply chain officer at Joseph Joseph and was impressed after a discussion with the firm’s co-founder, co-owner and CEO, Richard Joseph.
“I was sold the moment I met him,” she says. “He’s super smart and a great businessman who’s really clear on what he wants. He was someone I knew I could work for, and I bought into his vision. I absolutely love the product, and the founders – both Richard and Anthony – are delightful to work with.”
Vaughan recognises there are similarities between her current and former employers, as both are design-led businesses where the founders remain heavily involved. However, climbing higher up the career ladder at Dyson required a move to Singapore. She says joining Joseph Joseph allowed her to achieve her career aspirations in the UK at an organisation she admired.
“Chief supply chain officer was definitely my trajectory – it was the role I wanted,” she says. “And they were offering that opportunity at an exciting time. They were looking for someone to completely transform their supply chain, not do more of the same. I really believed in that vision. And seven months later, that’s exactly what we’ve done.”
Vaughan says the supply chain she inherited was a bit underdeveloped. She describes the existing supply chain as sedentary and traditional – she was given the remit to drive changes and create a modern, technology-enabled approach. Vaughan is focusing on transformation with the aim of developing an award-winning supply chain.
“That’s the motivation,” she says. “We’re not there now, but we will be. The talent within Joseph Joseph is quite phenomenal. I have a team of 50 people. We’re not a huge company, and yet we’re taking the supply chain seriously. And within that team, I have some smart individuals that I’m just grateful to work with every day.”
Making the most of digital and data
Vaughan reports to Richard Joseph and is a member of the executive board. She manages the end-to-end supply chain and the strategic sourcing of the firm’s products, which draws on the specialist procurement team under her wing.
“So, the beautiful designs that we come up with in London, we go and find somebody who can manufacture that product to our high standards,” she says. “It’s about ensuring we can do that task at the right price and time.” Other areas of responsibility include demand and supply planning, customer service and order management.
Digital and data play a crucial role in modern supply chain operations at Joseph Joseph. “Technology becomes more critical every month as things move on,” she says. “Ultimately, the world is too complex these days for us to have someone handing around pieces of paper. We need to be systemically controlled.”
“Technology becomes more critical every month as things move on. Ultimately, the world is too complex these days for us to have someone handing around pieces of paper. We need to be systemically controlled”
Sacha Vaughan, Joseph Joseph
The company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system runs on SAP. While this platform is critical for day-to-day operations, Vaughan says other areas of IT supporting the supply chain need work. However, dealing with that situation carefully is part of her long-term plan to transform the company’s operational activities.
“I’ve purposely kept us a little bit undeveloped this year because I want to work out how we want to run things here. I think some organisations jump into picking the new shiny technology and then try to bend their processes around what that technology can do, and you end up with suboptimal supply chains,” she says.
“What I want to do is be super clear on aims. Then we’ll go shopping for the right systems that meet those requirements, as opposed to buying a demand planning system that doesn’t deliver what the business needs. I want end-to-end integrations with systems that all work in the same direction and talk to each other seamlessly.”
Vaughan says that making those decisions will rely on working out how to integrate with customers and suppliers, allied to a careful consideration of how suppliers can help the business manage its inventory in the future: “We are looking at everything as an area of opportunity while we work out how we do things around here.”
Working with trusted partners
When it comes to the general direction of travel for supply chain technology at Joseph Joseph, Vaughan says application programming interfaces (APIs) are already the standard way of communicating with partner organisations. She’s interested in exploring the potential of emerging technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI), at the right time for the business.
“We have some elements of AI in our demand planning area, where we make predictions about what our customers are going to buy and when they’re going to buy it,” she says. “I think that’s a basic way of using AI, but there are more possibilities that we can leverage. However, they’re not firmly on our roadmap at the moment.”
Vaughan says any decision to use emerging technology is made in concert with the company’s IT director. Her team works closely with the technology department. While the IT department might like to move faster, Vaughan says it’s important to temper expectations as she sets her supply chain strategy in stone.
“They’re like, ‘Oh, Sacha, this is all the great technology out there that we could use.’ And I’m saying, ‘Yeah, that looks good. However, just let me get my house in order.’ I don’t want to put sticky plasters over things and have a problem recur in six months. [I want to] take a step back and fix our business challenges with technology forever,” she says.
I don’t want to put sticky plasters over things and have a problem recur in six months. [I want to] take a step back and fix our business challenges with technology forever Sacha Vaughan, Joseph Joseph
One of Vaughan’s most important moves was to establish a new partnership for third-party distribution centres in the UK. Her team ran a major procurement exercise after she joined in February. In July, Joseph Joseph’s end-to-end supply chain partnership with XPO Logistics became operational, and technology plays a key role in the approach.
“Everything’s got to be well controlled,” she says. “I was looking for a third-party partner who could ensure that we’re properly, systemically controlled. The data interface between us and XPO is seamless, with the right data in the right place at the right time, and interfaces that support our business, rather than a scrambled approach.”
Focusing on core activities
Joseph Joseph ships its stock to XPO’s third-party distribution centre in Rugby, where the logistics firm manages omnichannel fulfilment, warehousing, pre-retailing and distribution services for customers – both major retailers and individual consumers. Vaughan says the partnership allows her team to focus on growing the business rather than firefighting.
“You’ve got to know where your business is and what is core to you and where you want to focus,” she says. “I firmly believe that if you get the right partner, then logistics becomes a quiet part of the business. Because it’s the end of the chain, it can be super noisy. However, when fulfilment goes well, nobody talks about it, it’s super quiet, and you can get on with the stuff that’s going to control your costs and grow your business.”
Vaughan recognises that some companies choose to take control of fulfilment internally. In many cases, particularly for large firms, she says that’s a misguided approach. Successful digital transformation is a tricky process, and using the knowledge of an expert like XPO Logistics means her team can help Joseph Joseph deliver better customer experiences.
“Warehouse management systems are expensive – they take a lot of development, and a lot of technology is required to make things seamless,” she says. “It’s a lot of work running the distribution centres, and it’s a distraction from your core business. Giving this responsibility to people who are experts, and who can do it in a sustainable, repeatable, scalable way, is much more efficient, especially for a growing business.”
Vaughan reflects on the changes she’s seen during her time on the operational front line and is positive about the role of supply chain officers in the digital age. As more boards wake up to the opportunity to use high-quality fulfilment as a strategic lever for growth, she says the opportunities for her peers are significant, so long as they recognise the important role of digital transformation.
She says: “We need to think about key questions, such as, ‘How can you start with the customer and work back to make things frictionless?’ That’s where technology and supply chain should be focused. More and more, that’s the direction of travel, and supply chain leaders who are successful will be the ones who are really focused on the customer.”
At this point, the event was briefly disrupted by a small protest outside by two local activists who highlighted the fact that Attwood had been advocating a toxic bleach solution to his followers. Power and fellow far-right activist Philip Dwyer confronted the two protesters and questioned if they were trying to get Attwood killed, just like Kirk. Dwyer declined to answer WIRED’s questions about his comments but called this reporter a “communist left-wing radical.”
Back inside, Attwood laughed off the protesters, with one later speaker calling them “clones.”
Finally, after mystic Honey C Golden had informed everyone that “The Matrix was a reality show” and that she doesn’t “really believe in time,” it was time for Lewis Herms, a fringe candidate for California governor, to take the stage.
Herms, who became popular through his Screw Big Gov platform online, is running as an independent conservative and is one of almost 70 people who have filed statements of interest in being governor of California. Calling himself an “anti-politician,” Herms slammed the GOP for not talking about “child trafficking,” “election fraud,” or the influence of “Big Pharma.”
While Herms has decided not to employ a campaign manager—because it would not be authentic—he did claim that he is working with some other people.
“I’m very proud to say a lot of RFK Jr.’s team is already working with us,” Herms said. “And they already label our team Super MAHA because we’re looking for different modalities that we can bring back to California and bring to a whole other level than he’s even doing it right now.”
Herms and Kennedy did not respond to requests for comment.
Herms received a standing ovation at the end of his nearly 45-minute speech despite the fact that most people were, at this point, very cold. But even though it was now dark outside, there was still time for one more speaker—Janine Morigeau, a Canadian tarot card reader.
Just as the day had begun with the name of Kirk being invoked, so it ended. “Is Charlie Kirk really dead?” an audience member asked, with the rest of the crowd reacting excitedly. Morigeau proceeded to pull half a dozen different cards and very quickly concluded that the person seen on camera being shot was not actually Kirk at all.
“Whatever they were doing there was likely a white hat op, because it’s to the benefit of humanity,” Morigeau said before adding mysteriously: “I don’t know if even the real Charlie Kirk was who we thought he was.”
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