Gifts & school supplies: 6 real cases

Buy a child's back-to-school shoes in the right size and a school-approved microphone with Grok Bot

Asked to buy back-to-school shoes for their kid and a microphone for school, Vekay handed both to Grok Bot. It found a previous size 6 Hoka purchase in their email, opened shoes on the Hoka site and added the chosen pair to the cart. For the microphone (the post later calls it headphones) it checked the school website for requirements and added a couple of options to the Amazon cart; Vekay removed one and checked out. Vekay says what usually takes 30 minutes took 5, while watching TV.

Hunt for a $400 mixed-metal bracelet on Etsy with ChatGPT Instant Checkout and end with an empty cart (failure)

Business Insider's Jordan Hart tried ChatGPT's new Instant Checkout to find their mom a birthday bracelet in sterling silver and gold, with a $400 budget, starting on Etsy. ChatGPT listed seven Etsy options, but with links rather than a buy button, and one was a $2,400 cuff. Asked to show only items it could sell in the chat, it said it couldn't reliably tell from the product data which were eligible, and Skims and Glossier weren't live yet either. Searching other retailers, it found bracelets from brands such as Kendra Scott and Mejuri that fit the brief, though it had to be asked again for direct links. They didn't love any of them and ended with an empty cart.

Pick back-to-school supplies a daughter actually likes, with Target links, using ChatGPT

A parent gave ChatGPT the school's supply list for their daughter; because it already knew the girl's tastes from past chats, it picked specific items and gave direct Target links. They say their daughter, who usually dislikes whatever the parent chooses, didn't change a single item, only a few colours, and everything arrived within a few days.

Fill a back-to-school supply cart from the teacher's list with Gemini and Instacart

Tom's Guide's Amanda Caswell gave ChatGPT, Gemini and Alexa+ the same school supply list: follow it, stick to required quantities, pick reasonably priced items and skip optional ones. Gemini built an Instacart cart, skipped optional items, asked them to approve colours and totalled about $60–$90 ($105 with the optional water bottle). ChatGPT, on their Walmart account, followed the list carefully but slowly for $92.55; Alexa+ added the optional items and reached $251.48.

Find five Prime Day tech gifts under $100 each: ChatGPT vs Claude vs Gemini

TechRadar's editor-at-large gave ChatGPT (GPT-5), Claude (Sonnet 4.5) and Google AI Mode (Gemini 2.5 Pro) the same Prime Day gift brief: five fun tech gifts under $100, smaller than a bread box, ideally heavily discounted. They found all followed the brief closely; Gemini answered fastest and returned the most varied list and the best breakdown, Claude pulled its picks from TechRadar's own guides, and ChatGPT leaned toward Amazon devices.

Buy a work anniversary gift with ChatGPT agent (it abandoned three carts)

A poster asked ChatGPT agent to buy a 4-year work anniversary gift on a $140 budget. It researched and compared well, but abandoned three carts without asking (account required, gift card not found, a form error), unticked marketing emails, made up a phone number that caused shipping issues, chose passwords and rewrote the gift message without consulting them. It finished on a site with guest checkout.