Whats Next for AI? The Potential Role of AI Assistants in Daily Life

Current feedback on Rufus has been mixed, with some users noting its frequently incorrect or unhelpful responses. Get the latest updates and insights on AI in education to keep you and your students current. Math is a fundamental part of K-12 education, but students often face significant challenges in mastering increasingly challenging math concepts.

Virtual try-ons, AI-powered shopping assistants, and voice-enabled search have shifted from nice-to-have to must-have, as shoppers seek out journeys that blend convenience with confidence. The surge in voice-driven purchases highlights how consumer habits are evolving alongside technology and signals the need for retailers to invest in AI or risk falling behind. For example, AI can analyze a customer’s browsing history, purchase patterns, and even real-time interactions to suggest complementary products or services.

Guides

New-age technologies are reshaping e-commerce as it transform shopping from a transactional activity to an immersive, personalised experience. Trust matters too, with 65% say they won’t buy from retailers that use returns providers they don’t trust. The guides also, however, show how generative AI threatens to upend the economics of search and shopping while borrowing liberally from conventional publishers. But Salakhutdinov says that having a wealth of information about how users go about common and important tasks like shopping might be a crucial ingredient for getting them to stay on track.

Stepping Into The Future

The influence of viral trends is powerful too, with 87% of shoppers say social buzz shapes their purchasing decisions. “LLM agents are a customer service game changer,” says Mark Chrystal, CEO of Profitmind, a company that uses AI to provide retailers with analytics. This diverts traffic from outlets, like WIRED, that make money by producing shopping guides, reviews, and other articles, even though the AI results are produced using data scraped from such websites in the first place. The new shopping guides highlight generative AI’s potential in ecommerce, creating guides for product categories too niche to normally get the treatment. Analysis suggests that recommendations vary significantly based on users’ historical purchase behavior and typical price points—perhaps the clearest example yet of meaningful personalization in retail search. Brands now have to consider how to optimize their product content, not just for consumers, but also for these large language models.

Sales

The key lies in thoughtful implementation, using AI as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, the invaluable human elements that make teaching assistants such crucial members of the educational team. Brands with a particularly tech-savvy customer base, for instance, will be more likely to see a sharp uptick in shoppers using AI assistants, Rowland said. Those brands will want to put a particular focus on appealing to AIs without sacrificing the creative they already have. But not all industries will be affected equally when it comes to the adoption of AI shopping assistants. It’s understandable that many creative production shops and agencies are concerned that AI is coming for their livelihoods.

• Executives at the company say its engineers are also exploring more ambitious AI services, including autonomous AI shopping agents that recommend goods to a customer or even add items to their cart.
• With a kind of biometric suite, an AI assistant could even keep you informed on your body’s needs.
• As agentic AI scales, human agents will continue to play a critical role in maintaining transparency, trust, and brand loyalty.
• An AI assistant is a kind of tool that would have unprecedented access to the user’s information and would therefore require a level of protection that may not be possible in the technology’s current state.

Canfield showed WIRED shopping guides for televisions and earbuds that noted important technical features, explanations of key terminology, and, of course, recommendations on which products to buy. The underlying LLM has access to the vast corpus of product information, customer questions, reviews, and feedback, and users’ buying habits. Welcome to the era of agentic artificial intelligence (AI) in retail, where A2C is disrupting commerce.

• As life-like, responsive AI replicas of humans become a reality, a new era of digital engagement is emerging—one that’s as immersive as live shopping but powered by intelligent, action-capable agents.
• The influence of viral trends is powerful too, with 87% of shoppers say social buzz shapes their purchasing decisions.
• The company has implemented a Gen AI-powered drive-through service that combines the strengths of human crew and chatbots.

Half have abandoned carts over sustainability concerns, and 52% have opted for pre-owned or refurbished products. In addition, social platforms are no longer just spaces for discovery as they’ve become shopping destinations. By 2030, 85% expect to bypass traditional eCommerce sites entirely and buy primarily through platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.

Aside from task management and boosting productivity, there are ways that an AI assistant could contribute to improving your health. With the right tools, it may be capable of tracking sleep patterns or monitoring activity levels, even offering constructive health advice based on collected data. Considering these personal health elements, an assistant might offer suggestions specific to you, whether you might need to sleep or exercise more, relax or eat healthier. His testing shows that responses vary significantly between users, with evidence suggesting this variation stems from individual shopping patterns and price preferences.

Consumer preferences vary based on situations—while human agents are valued for their empathy and creative problem-solving, virtual agents are preferred for speed and convenience. If they execute, e-commerce can become more efficient, less inventory can go to waste and profits can increase—all while building greater brand loyalty through a highly enjoyable, customized online experience. While challenges inevitably exist, it’s only a matter of time before consumer expectations for e-commerce shift.

As these AI systems scale, they will become increasingly specialized and self-sufficient, streamlining operations with minimal human oversight. Most significantly, agentic AI is set to transform customer service, providing real-time assistance to shoppers and guiding them to the right products across websites and digital platforms. Adopting AI-powered tools positions your business for a future defined by hyper-personalized, omni-channel shopping experiences.

Executives at the company say its engineers are also exploring more ambitious AI services, including autonomous AI shopping agents that recommend goods to a customer or even add items to their cart. For many, artificial intelligence technology has already become a part of daily life. It might not be at the level of a full-blown AI assistant, but it can be used to boost productivity or help out in task management. Regardless, companies like The Image have a vision for what the next chapter of AI could look like—AI assistants that are more than tools, but proactive digital companions. E-commerce major Meesho has built a deeply AI-integrated e-commerce engine that powers everything from personalised product discovery to customer service and seller optimisation. With over 187 million annual transacting users, Meesho’s platform doesn’t just react to user queries — it anticipates them.

Meesho uses Large Language Models (LLMs) to understand vernacular expressions, decode mixed-language queries, and even correct typos in real-time. “Complementing this is MyFashionGPT, which lets users express their fashion needs in their own words — be it ‘a Diwali look or ‘what to wear to a beach wedding’. It decodes these everyday cues to deliver tailored product recommendations across categories,” he added. Now, imagine a dimension where shopping isn’t just a chore, but an experience—fun, efficient, convenient, and effortless. A space where buying something feels like shopping with a friend, delegating it to a personal assistant, or trusting a family member because they know what’s needed or desired. There also are risks that a brand or e-commerce retailer could use a celebrity’s or influencer’s likeness without their consent.