OpenAI and Perplexity are launching AI shopping assistants, but competing startups aren’t sweating it

Summary

With holiday shopping on the horizon, OpenAI and Perplexity both announced AI shopping features this week, which integrate into their existing chatbots to help users research potential purchases. The tools are markedly similar to one another. OpenAI suggests that users could ask ChatGPT for help finding a “new laptop suitable for gaming under $1000 with a screen that’s over 15 inches,” or they can share photos of a high-end garment and ask for something similar at a lower price point. Perplexity, meanwhile, is playing up how its chatbot’s memory can augment shopping-related searches for its users, suggesting that someone could ask for recommendations tailored to what the chatbot already knows about them, like where they live or what they do for work. Adobe predicted that AI-assisted online shopping will grow by 520% this holiday season, which could be a boon for AI shopping startups like Phia, Cherry, or Deft — but with OpenAI and Perplexity pushing further into AI shopping experiences, are these startups in danger? Zach Hudson, CEO of the interior design shopping tool Onton, thinks that AI shopping startups with a specialized niche will still provide a better experience to users than general-purpose tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity. “Any model or knowledge graph is only as good as its data sources,” Hudson told TechCrunch. “Right now, ChatGPT and LLM-based tools like Perplexity piggyback off existing search indexes like Bing or Google. That makes them really only as good as the first few results that come back from those indexes.” Daydream CEO and longtime e-commerce executive Julie Bornstein agrees — she remarked to TechCrunch over the summer that she always viewed search as “the forgotten child” of the fashion industry, since it never worked particularly well. Techcrunch event San Francisco | October 13-15, 2026 “Fashion … is uniquely nuanced and emotional — finding a dress you love is not the same as finding a television,” Bornstein told TechCrunch on Tuesday. ...