Target's ChatGPT App Isn't Good News
The one thing you need to know in AI today | AI Ready CMO
Ever seen bad news dressed up as good news? I have one for you.
Target just launched a ChatGPT shopping app that lets you browse, build multi-item carts, and check out—all inside a conversation. Ask for “family movie night” recommendations and get curated suggestions for blankets, snacks, and slippers. Add them to your cart, choose Drive Up or shipping, and you’re done. No tab-switching, no search engine, no scrolling through reviews. OpenAI’s Fidji Simo called it an example of “what the AI transformation looks like when it’s done with ambition and speed.”
But here’s the story behind the story: this isn’t democratizing retail. It’s a consolidation play with potentially pretty ugly consequences.
Sure, technically, anyone can build a ChatGPT app. Practically, the question is: are you in Target’s catalog? Are you on Shopify or another platform with out-of-the-box LLM integrations? If not, you don’t exist in conversational commerce.