Uber’s AI Grocery Bot Remembers Your Brand Loyalty, Judge Not Your Diet

KEY POINTS

•Uber introduced 'Cart Assistant' in its Eats app to simplify grocery shopping with AI starting in early 2024.
•Users can type simple grocery items or upload a picture of a list to generate personalized shopping carts based on past orders.
•Upcoming updates to Cart Assistant include recipe suggestions, expanding its role from shopping helper to culinary advisor.

On the horizon of 2024’s relentless tech convenience wave, Uber has unveiled 'Cart Assistant,' an AI sidekick in the Uber Eats app aimed at transforming your mundane grocery runs into marvels of digital delight. Launching with features that allow you to text basic grocery items like 'milk, eggs, cereal,' it heroically promises to sift through your pickup history to populate your cart with your Very Specific Brand Preferences. In a move that whispers sweet nothings to brand loyalty while simultaneously nudging you out of bargain bin glory, Uber’s bot, captured in a promotional image by Jakub Porzycki for Getty, also previews tantalizing upcoming features like full recipe inspirations — because who doesn’t want a bot judging and suggesting what they eat? Available soon, Cart Assistant intends to make grocery shopping less about choice paralysis and more about convenient AI dictation, obliging your whims even if they involve 12 different types of artisan almond milk from Glendale to Goa. Buffet your cart, because Uber obviously knows you better than your own pantry does.