Shopping Curation by Assistant

So what is shopping curation?    It gives the choice of product or brands or services in the hands of a smart device.   For first purchase or replenishment.   By suggestion, friendly influence or by direct substitution.    As our assistants get increasingly human, friendly and 'smart',  we may start to trust them implicitly.  But do they have our best needs in mind?   Or is it just a more heavy-handed kind of advertising?  Just how transparent is the reason for the suggestion?  Have seen it already in the alteration of shopping lists, and the direct substitution of 'high ranking' projects for more generic requests. 

Is AI-driven shopping curation a good thing?  in Retailwire.  With expert commentary.
by Guest contributor    MarketingCharts staff

Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of articles from MarketingCharts, which provides up-to-the-minute data and research to marketers. ... 

A survey of tech-savvy consumers showed that more were confident that AI would narrow (56 percent) rather than expand their options (44 percent).

Interestingly, among those who felt that AI would narrow their options, a slight majority thought that it would limit them from seeing all of the options they would normally explore. Conversely, slightly fewer felt that AI would narrow their options, but in a good way.

The survey from The Integer Group of almost 3,700 U.S. consumers, of whom 3,615 described AI in positive terms, explored AI perceptions.

The findings bring to mind research from L2, which found that Alexa prioritizes Amazon’s Choice products over top-ranked items in conventional search. In presenting just a couple of options for an item, Alexa essentially makes a lot of decisions for the shopper, and the factors used in that curation may not rest simply on high-ranking products.

Nonetheless, there’s more to AI than just Alexa. Overall, 61 percent of respondents in the Integer Group survey felt that AI curation would benefit them either by expanding their exploration and helping them find new things (37 percent) or by narrowing their options in a good way (24 percent). .... "