AI for online shopping: 63 real cases with prompts

Make a Costco weekly grocery list for under $100 with ChatGPT (real prices came to $167)

GOBankingRates' Kathryn Jackson asked ChatGPT for a full Costco shopping list for the week under $100; it said the list was for a family of two and totalled $95. On Costco's website the same groceries came to $167, some items only came in larger quantities, and the list left out dairy like milk and cheese, tomatoes, other green vegetables, potatoes and other meats.

Compare contact lens prices across retailers from a prescription with Perplexity and save $150

Needing new contacts after an eye exam (the old lenses were discontinued), Dmitry Shamis found 1-800-CONTACTS expensive, so gave Perplexity the prescription and asked it to find prices. It checked 1-800-CONTACTS, Costco, Walmart and other sites and organized a comparison; Walmart was $150 cheaper for the same contacts, a retailer Shamis hadn't known sold them.

Find a washing machine deal within budget in a Black Friday sale with Grok

When their old washing machine died, a UAE-based poster asked Grok for help buying a new one within budget. The poster says Grok suggested links, compared options and asked what suited them best, and they got their first-ever Black Friday deal, saving around 600 AED, with delivery due in three days.

Look for Black Friday laptop deals with ChatGPT (and double-check them)

TechRadar deals writer Alex Whitelock tested ChatGPT on Black Friday laptop deals. Its first picks were pricey and left out MacBooks; asked for budget options, it suggested sub-$200 Chromebooks they felt were too basic. Prices were up to date and brands well known, but after digging they concluded there were better deals elsewhere and say you need to double-check prices and cross-reference expert reviews.

Find the right TV in Black Friday sales with ChatGPT's questions and agent

Knowing next to nothing about TVs, Tom's Guide's Alex Hughes told ChatGPT (Thinking mode) they wanted a 43- or 50-inch TV for £300 or less and asked it to question them to narrow things down. They then switched to ChatGPT agent to search the sales; it returned options with links, reasons and discount details plus two cheaper alternatives, and a top pick. They say the whole process took 20 minutes, mostly agent search time while they did other things, and left them with 7 suitable deals.

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.

Get a full refund for event tickets the seller didn't have, by finding a gap in their terms with ChatGPT

After buying event tickets from a resale site and finding the seller didn't have them in hand, a buyer was refused a refund. They gave ChatGPT the site's terms of service, and it found they required buyers to expressly accept a delayed-fulfilment model, which they were never asked to do at checkout. With ChatGPT they drafted messages citing this and filed complaints with the BBB, FTC and California Attorney General, and say they had a full refund within days.

Order a customised fast-food meal for delivery with ChatGPT agent

A Wendy's innovation executive gave ChatGPT agent one prompt to order a customised combo, drink and Frosty from wendys.com for delivery, including their payment info. They say it navigated the site like a real user, hit snags, worked around them and placed the order; a misread CVV field almost broke it.

Try to buy dog treats on Amazon with ChatGPT agent (blocked), then on PetSmart (worked)

TechRadar's Eric Hal Schwartz asked ChatGPT agent to buy Purina dental chews for their new puppy on Amazon. It hit a 503 error page every time and finally said network restrictions made interacting with Amazon impossible. Asked to buy the same treats at PetSmart, it navigated the store and the multi-step checkout with no problem.

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.

Make Amazon returns, including one past the deadline, with ChatGPT Operator

A shopper tested ChatGPT's Operator on Amazon returns. The first took about 15 minutes, with the shopper stepping in for login, CAPTCHAs and choices; the second ran autonomously in under a minute but gave a gift-card balance instead of a card refund. For a ~$100 rug past its return window, it needed repeated nudging to reach a human agent instead of messaging the seller and forgot earlier preferences, but in the end got the extension and the $100 back.

Build a reusable Gemini shopping-assistant prompt with live product links

A tech columnist asked Gemini 2.0 to write them a shopping-assistant prompt (role, workflow, follow-up questions and web search), loaded it into a chatbot wrapper with web browsing on, and fine-tuned it to return live product links. They say it delivered almost exactly what they needed in early tests, and lets them weight three key features, e.g. 'wet and dry', 'cheap' and 'rotary' for a men's shaver.

Order a pizza by phone with a coupon using Grok Bot

The poster says Grok Bot found that their pizza shop had moved, set up a call, found a coupon that saved $8.99 and placed the order by phone; they called the shop afterwards to confirm the order was real and shared the call recording.

Clip every digital coupon on a grocery account with Claude Cowork

Claude Cowork logged into the poster's Jewel-Osco account and clipped every available coupon.

Rank used cars to test-drive and get a test-drive checklist with Grok

An X user says they gave Grok all the cars they were considering test-driving and it evaluated and ranked them, then gave them a detailed list of what to check on the test drive at each speed and under the hood. They say they bought a one-owner car with 48k miles and no accidents from CarMax.

Build a grocery cart and check out inside ChatGPT with the Instacart app

TechRadar's reviewer connected Instacart to ChatGPT and asked for infant formula, vanilla ice cream and fruit; ChatGPT suggested products, built the cart quickly and opened a checkout window in the chat confirming items, payment and address.

Put together an Uber Eats dinner order with Gemini task automation

The Verge's Allison Johnson had Gemini's task automation on a Pixel 10 Pro and Galaxy S26 Ultra build their Saturday dinner order on Uber Eats. It correctly added two half portions to make one chicken teriyaki combo, struggled to find a side of greens and made a couple of wrong turns, and took about nine minutes, stopping before the final confirm so they could check and place the order.

Put three second-hand jacket options in a Depop cart with Gemini in Chrome

Wired's reviewer asked Chrome's Auto Browse for a leather jacket on Depop that fits an XL man; it searched, set the size filter, added three jackets to the cart and wrote a case for each. One was a decent-looking $40 jacket, but they note it simply picked the top three search results.

Pick a mattress under budget from real reviews with ChatGPT

The Sydney Morning Herald's Jessica Yun asked ChatGPT for the best mattress around $600, with top three picks based on quality and value informed by real reviews. They looked at all three, chose a hybrid mattress and paid for it in under 10 minutes, $59 under budget, and say they were delighted with it less than two weeks later.

Poster says:Bought in under 10 minutes, $59 below budget

Order a pizza to your door with ChatGPT agent

Tom's Guide's Alex Hughes asked ChatGPT agent to order a pizza to their address and ask before paying; it worked through pop-ups and site obstacles and handed back at checkout for their details and payment, taking about 15–20 minutes. Asked for a pizza from one specific restaurant, it gave up on the restaurant's own site, searched Deliveroo at length and finally found it on Uber Eats.

Fill a Walmart delivery cart from past purchases with ChatGPT Atlas

ZDNet's reviewer had Atlas agent mode order wood putty, caulk and screws from their local Walmart for same-day delivery; after they signed in manually and told it to use their past purchases, it found the right brands in their order history and loaded the cart, leaving them to pick a window, tip and pay. About 10 minutes in all.

Poster says:About 10 minutes

Find an anti-glare screen protector that arrives on time with ChatGPT Atlas

Digital Trends' reviewer asked Atlas agent mode for an anti-glare screen protector for the iPhone 17 Pro; it matched the criteria, chose one that would arrive by their date at their location and stopped at Amazon's checkout page.

Plan a meal and order the groceries with ChatGPT agent

Sky Canaves tried OpenAI's example 'plan and buy ingredients to make Japanese breakfast for four'; ChatGPT agent shopped their local H-E-B through Instacart, needed them to take over to log in, filled a roughly $130 cart with things they already had, asked before paying and the trimmed order arrived on time. 'It worked, yes', they wrote, but with plenty of friction.

Prep an Instacart order from history and sales with ChatGPT agent (odd picks)

Given access to Instacart and told to prep an order from the poster's history and current sales, ChatGPT agent picked items with reasoning the poster found oddly generic ("cereal, which is on sale and a usual part of groceries").