Albertsons expands retail partnership with OpenAI

U.S. supermarket chain Albertsons Companies (Albertsons Cos.) is extending its partnership with OpenAI across its retail business, from employee work tools to grocery shopping and advertising. In an official case study published on October 1 (local time), OpenAI said Albertsons uses ChatGPT Enterprise together with custom customer experiences, data-driven recommendations and promotional insights built with the OpenAI API. Albertsons operates banners including Albertsons, Safeway, Vons, Jewel-Osco, Shaw's, ACME and Tom Thumb, serving more than 36 million customers each week across more than 2,200 stores. OpenAI called the relationship a "360-degree partnership."

The most visible change for consumers is Safeway shopping inside ChatGPT. Shoppers can start with a recipe, a photo, a digital shopping list or a short request. OpenAI's examples include "Plan pizza night for four," "Put together a quick dinner from the deli" and "Restock breakfast foods and snacks using store brands." ChatGPT surfaces relevant products and savings and builds a cart, and checkout then moves to the Safeway platform. According to reports, the feature was first announced as a plugin on August 5, and users invoke it by typing "@Safeway" in ChatGPT followed by a request.

"This is another practical way we are using AI to reduce friction and make everyday shopping easier," said Jill Pavlovich, senior vice president of digital customer experience at Albertsons Companies. When the plugin was announced, she said "research tells us that consumers are increasingly interested in using AI to help with grocery shopping," adding that by enabling the plugin in ChatGPT the company is "making grocery shopping as simple as having a conversation by meeting our customers when and how they choose to shop." The company plans to expand the experience beyond Safeway to other banners including Albertsons, Vons, Jewel-Osco, Shaw's, ACME and Tom Thumb.

The demand case rests on research from market research firm dunnhumby. Citing dunnhumby's February 2026 U.S. Consumer Trends Tracker, OpenAI's post said shoppers are more open to using AI for groceries than for other kinds of purchases. According to reports, 15% of U.S. consumers surveyed in the same study said they had used AI tools such as ChatGPT to help with grocery shopping, with shopping lists and price comparisons as the top uses.

From an engineer's point of view, the important part of this design sits behind the screen. According to OpenAI, Albertsons combines predictive models with generative AI to deliver explainable, data-driven recommendations and promotional insights that help merchants weigh business considerations and make better decisions. Existing models such as demand forecasting calculate which products to promote, and the language model translates those results into reasons people can read. Because forecast accuracy and the persuasiveness of the explanation are assigned to different models, the structure lowers the risk of a language model inventing numbers while earning the trust of the people who use the output.

The rollout starts narrow and widens. According to OpenAI's post, ChatGPT Enterprise and OpenAI-powered applications are first being used by teams building retail technology and by select business functions where AI can have a meaningful impact. Digital shopping, store operations, fulfillment, merchandising and customer experience all run on systems that teams continually build and test. Albertsons plans to build capabilities in focused areas first, evaluate what works, create repeatable practices and then expand across the organization.

The partnership also extends to advertising. In a February 12 press release, Albertsons announced that it was joining OpenAI's Ad Pilot Program, which tests new ad formats in ChatGPT. Ahead of Valentine's Day, users who entered search terms such as "best flowers for Valentine's Day" could see clearly labeled ads under the name of their local store, which led to a page offering flowers, chocolates and gifts delivered in as little as 30 minutes. METAL has reported that OpenAI is testing sponsored agents in ChatGPT ads, and Albertsons is one of the early retail partners in that advertising ecosystem.

"We're focused on advertising that enhances the customer journey, instead of interrupting it," Jennifer Saenz, chief commercial officer at Albertsons Cos., said at the time, adding that "by testing ads in ChatGPT, we're growing our engagement with new customers and continuing to connect with our current customers in meaningful ways." Albertsons Media Collective, the company's retail media arm, says it will help brand partners reach their target audiences through the AI product as the pilot grows. The company said the Collective's catalog and content are optimized for use by large language models.

All of this builds on a foundation Albertsons first laid in its own channels. According to reports, the company launched an agentic AI shopping assistant on its banner websites in December 2025, which builds meal plans and shopping lists, reorders frequent purchases and imports recipes from photos. Early this year, Albertsons named strengthening the digital customer experience as one of its four AI priorities for 2026. In its press release, the company said early adoption of the AI shopping assistant and AskAI was showing strong engagement and double-digit basket growth.

Reading OpenAI's case study alongside the Albertsons press release that METAL reviewed, the announcement is less a single new feature than a layout plan. Employees work in ChatGPT Enterprise, merchants review promotional rationale produced jointly by predictive and language models, and customers fill a cart in a ChatGPT conversation and then pay on Safeway. OpenAI says the setup ties advertising and commerce apps together as OpenAI-powered capabilities that can be extended across the enterprise. As a retailer with 2,243 stores puts its work, shopping and advertising on one AI provider, retail competition is now playing out not only in front of the shelf but inside the chat window.