Hello! We are back with a new edition of About technology: AIa pop-up newsletter that teaches you about artificial intelligence, how it works and how to use it.
Last week I showed you how to use AI to prepare for the dreaded office meeting. Now let’s take the money you’ve earned from all that hard work and move on to something more fun: shopping.
The most time-consuming part of shopping for many is the research process: digging through review sites and picking out the item that’s right for you, whether it’s coffee equipment or a hotel room that’s both convenient and affordable.
I’ll discuss what AI can do to make informed purchasing decisions quickly and efficiently. For this exercise, I’ll focus on using chatbots including Microsoft’s Bing, Google’s Bard, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT to do product research. I’ll also explore how to use ChatGPT plugins, a more recent development, for making shopping lists and planning trips.
Product research
Let’s say you like to brew your coffee in a French press and you want to buy a grinder that doesn’t cost more than $200. The typical research process is to search the web and read some reviews.
AI chatbots can streamline this process. Microsoft’s Bing and Google’s Bard, which connect to search engines by default, are currently best equipped to get up-to-date product recommendations.
As always, the right prompt will yield the best results. For this example, you would type something like: “Act as a store clerk. I’m looking for a French press coffee bean grinder that has been well reviewed. It should cost no more than $200. In response, Bing and Bard will list examples of grinders that meet the criteria.
You can also ask the chatbots more difficult questions, such as which household appliances last a long time. You could type something like, “Working as a shop assistant. I’m looking for a refrigerator. Which brands have the highest reliability rating and what are some of their top-rated refrigerators?”
The bots will tell you which devices have the highest reliability ratings from publications such as Consumer Reports and The Times’s own Wirecutter.
When using a chatbot, it’s a good idea to check the results for accuracy. But doing a web search to check the bots’ recommendations is a lot faster than doing a manual search from scratch.
Shopping
Now let’s talk about the future. OpenAI is developing a plugin platform, which is essentially a third-party app store that lets you add capabilities to ChatGPT. Currently, only subscribers who pay $20 per month for ChatGPT Plus can use plugins, including web browsing and shopping plugins.
To use plugins if you are a paying subscriber, go to the ChatGPT settings menu, click on ‘beta features’ and enable ‘plugins’. Next, in the ChatGPT app or website, go to the GPT-4 tab and click on ‘plugins’. Then click the down arrow and select the plugin store. Here you can search for apps. Let’s start with one for the grocery delivery app, Instacart.
Try typing a prompt like, “I’m making pasta Bolognese. What’s a good recipe and what are the ingredients?” The chatbot lists the ingredients that go into the dish and offers to generate a shopping list.
Another interesting way to use the plugin is to bypass dietary restrictions. For example, “I’m making food for a pescatarian. Give me a suggestion and the ingredients.” The bot will suggest a meal – in my case lemon garlic butter shrimp – and list the ingredients.
Clicking on the shopping list takes you to Instacart, where you can automatically load all the items into your cart and choose a supermarket to buy them from.
If you don’t want to pay for ChatGPT Plus, you can still use AI to do your shopping. Try asking Bing for a recipe and then ask it for the grocery list of ingredients needed. In one particularly nifty trick, you can even ask him to organize your shopping list on the supermarket aisle.
Trip planning
There are also plug-ins from travel sites such as Kayak and Expedia that help with travel planning. For example, you can look for a well-reviewed hotel within walking distance of tourist sites for up to $500 per night — a process that typically requires you to browse reviews and go through maps.
Let’s try the Expedia plugin as a shortcut.
“I will be traveling to Florence, Italy from July. Find well-reviewed hotels that are within walking distance of tourist attractions. My budget is $500 per night. The bot responded to this prompt with a list of top-rated hotels with a 9 and above on Expedia near tourist attractions such as the Central Market and the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.
You can also use the Expedia plugin to search for flights. For example, “I’m trying to fly from San Francisco to Milan, Italy on July 28. What are my best options with short layovers?” ChatGPT then loads Expedia’s results for the shortest flights. It returned three flights from KLM, Delta and United, all with single stops of no more than two hours. (I tried the same prompts with Bard and Bing, which showed generic information and inaccurate ticket prices – not helpful!)
What’s next?
Next week I’ll discuss how you can use AI to organize your life.
