Uber Eats Office has partnered a new AI feature, “Cart Assistant,” on Wednesday designed to fill customers’ grocery carts faster and easier. The beta version is now available in the app.​

To use the new chatbot, users find a grocery store in the Uber Eats app and tap the purple Cart Assistant icon on the store’s page to start shopping.

Customers can enter a list or upload an image of one, and Cart Assistant will automatically add the necessary items to their basket. This includes photos of handwritten lists or screenshots of recipes and their ingredients. Users can customize the basket by exchanging items for preferred brands or adding more products from the store

Uber Eats says Cart Assistant uses past orders to prioritize familiar items — like your usual milk or favorite oatmeal — to make the experience more personal.​​

“Users tell us they want an easy way to shop, and we know how valuable your time is,” Uber CTO Praveen Neppalli Naga said in a statement. “Cart Assistant helps you get from idea to checkout in seconds.”

Cart Assistant will help Uber Eats better compete with other food delivery and grocery apps that are already integrating or developing AI chatbots. For example, Instacart launched an AI search tool powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2023 to help customers save time and receive personalized shopping recommendations. DoorDash An AI chatbot called DashAI was also reportedly tested in the same year

Last year, two Uber Eats and rival DoorDash are integrated with ChatGPT to streamline food ordering. With Uber Eats, US users can browse local restaurants and menus on ChatGPT, then complete their purchase in the Uber Eats app. The DoorDash integration allows users to request meal plans and automatically add all required ingredients to their DoorDash cart.

Notably, Bloomberg reported in 2023 that Uber Eats development of an AI-powered chatbot which supposedly asks users about their budget and food preferences, and helps them order.​​

Overall, Uber Eats is rapidly investing in AI, including tool for traders such as AI-generated menu descriptions, enhanced food photos, and customer review summaries.