Because artificial intelligence won’t rest until it’s invaded every last area of your personal lives, Checkers Sixty60 — a grocery delivery app, mind you — now has AI powers. That’s not news. Xtra Savings Plus customers have had access to Pixie for months, before the Shoprite-owned store gave it away for free in July. Now, it’s getting an upgrade. Customers can actually talk to Pixie using text, voice, and even images. For some reason.
Shoprite Group’s Neil Schreuder went as far as calling it a “24/7 personal shopping butler.” We wouldn’t go that far. Not ’til we’ve tested it thoroughly anyway. That won’t happen right away. Checkers’ announcement mentions that, once again, the feature will be limited to Xtra Savings Plus customers and rolled out over the coming weeks.
This isn’t the manic pixie dream girl we were looking for
Dubbed Pixie Smart Chat, the AI-powered shopper was designed to “remove friction from grocery shopping by understanding what customers need.” It’ll go beyond just recommending items (to varying degrees of accuracy) and take orders more conversationally. It’ll understand context, too, which feeds into its recommendations.
Like the time of day, for instance. Wondering what to throw in a pot on a cold winter’s night? Pixie will supposedly suggest something along the lines of a ‘chicken curry recipe’, ‘warm drinks’, or even, uh, ‘Lip care essentials‘. We reckon Sixty60 will iron out the kinks. Or maybe this is just a kink in the technology itself.
Ask Pixie to generate a recipe, and it’ll do so, with suggestions of what needs to be bought first. Or, upload a picture of a handwritten recipe lying about the house, and Pixie will turn it into a shopping list. Checkers claims it’ll even identify which blades your razor needs when it comes time to restock. Just snap a picture and hit send.
Exactly what friction Pixie Smart Chat hopes to remove is unclear. The arduous labour of scanning virtual shelves — maybe even for minutes at a time? Sixty60 was initially designed to do just that back in 2019, when it became that much harder to visit the store in person.
