Are AI Shopping Startups at Risk?

[mendez]

With ChatGPT and Perplexity now offering built-in shopping and checkout flows via Shopify and PayPal, competition is heating up. Yet founders say general LLMs can’t match the accuracy of vertical models — especially in nuanced categories like fashion and home design, where curated data and merchandising logic win.

[Nahid Hossen]

Competition in AI retail is rising fast, making survival harder for early startups.