Was anyone suggesting AI would help with it? It seems from the article that Walmart (presumably experts in e-commerce) themselves willingly collaborated with open ai. Especially at Walmart's level, what even was the theory?
In any case. It seems that despite this poor result, Walmart decided to essentially go ahead anyway and partner with open ai to put their "own chatbot" inside the open ai app?
They forgot the first thing. Why would a customer use it and does it help them buy more stuff so I make more money?
Just putting an AI in there for the heck of it is doomed to failure.
I can think of a few different ways AI could be used inside a shopping app especially at the size of a company like walmart. Such as 'hey try our picknick planner?', 'need some sort of DIY project? Ask our bot for help'. Guide the user on what they need for a project and hey look here we have that stuff in stock at your local store today.
The cart experience one of the last places I would put an AI. At that point the customer is 'done' and they want out.