Macy’s AI Closes the Sale Before Shoppers Walk Away
Macy’s AI Closes the Sale Before Shoppers Walk Away
Publish Date: 2026-06-02 18:45:00
Source Domain: www.pymnts.com
-
High Cart Abandonment Rate: Seven in ten online shopping carts are abandoned before purchase, a problem retailers have attempted to solve with various strategies but with little success.
-
Macy’s AI Shopping Assistant: Macy’s has implemented Ask Macy’s, a conversational AI shopping assistant based on Google’s Gemini Enterprise, to address shopping cart abandonment proactively by asking shoppers follow-up questions to resolve uncertainty before abandonment happens.
-
Effectiveness During Beta Testing: During beta testing, revenue per visit using the AI assistant was 4.75 times higher compared to non-users, indicating its effectiveness in enhancing the shopping experience.
-
Multimodal and Detailed Recommendations: Ask Macy’s handles both text and images and interacts with users about their specific needs, narrowing down recommendations by asking contextual questions and offering a virtual try-on feature.
-
Rapid Development and Launch: Macy’s pivoted to adopting the Gemini AI to adapt quickly to AI innovations; the project went from conception to full site launch in just a few weeks with intensive daily collaboration between Macy’s and Google Cloud engineers.
-
Growing AI Usage in Retail: PYMNTS Intelligence reports indicate increasing consumer usage of AI in shopping, with nearly half using AI during their last purchase and many retailers piloting AI assistants, expecting it to market worth $1.7 trillion by 2030.
-
Success of Other Retailers’ AI Assistants: Like Macy’s, other retailers such as Albertsons and Ulta also reported positive outcomes from their respective AI shopping assistants, including a 10% increase in basket size for Albertsons.
