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Integrating AI into chatbots and virtual assistants will create powerful generative AI (genAI) agents that perform tasks on a user’s behalf and actively solve problems. PFM tools will adopt a forward-looking perspective and become proactive, predictive, and prescriptive.

Key skills include writing code, booking travel, and managing investments, requiring minimal oversight and greater understanding than what chatbots are capable of. Shopping is emerging as a popular application among users, with 60% of Gen Zers—and 44% of consumers overall—interested in AI-assisted shopping, per PYMNTS.

The same strategy for improving search functionality and making answers more readily available was adopted by Reddit this week, when it launched an AI-powered conversational chatbot called Reddit Answers. Competition in the field: Yelp’s Review Insights offer a summary similar to Google’s AI Overviews by giving consumers a consolidated view of the information they’re looking for.

GenAI-powered chatbots drove shoppers to spend. Consumers’ use of genAI-powered features grew 6% week over week on Black Friday as shoppers turned to the technology to find products that suited their needs, per Adobe. That assistance delivered clear results: Retailers with genAI integrated into their site and/or app saw a 9% higher conversion rate than other retailers.

Meaning, if you were to search, "Help me find a job," for example, the chat bot could suggest that you next ask it, how can I use Indeed to enhance my job search? And then Zak Stambor, our colleague, writing about how Amazon has quietly begun to weave sponsored ads, it's core search ad format, into Rufus, its Gen AI powered chat bot. It launched earlier this year.

As AI advances from simple chatbots to mission-critical tools like AI agents, businesses and investors are showing renewed optimism—though their confidence may outpace the technology’s current capabilities. AI hype versus ROI: Salesforce’s AI agents have received strong initial feedback—the company’s 150,000-firm client list is a captive market for running AI tools and automations at scale.

Our take: News outlets are facing layoffs and growing threats to web traffic from AI chatbots and search engines. These partnerships could help them keep the lights on and give them a piece of the booming AI industry. Companies like Perplexity and OpenAI are hungry for content to improve their offerings.

Unlike scripted chatbots, genAI virtual assistants can understand unscripted customer prompts and references and extract insights from multiple data sources to deliver tailored answers in real time. This saves customers the hassle of going through an unhelpful, scripted chatbot only to eventually be transferred to a human. It will enable hyper-personalized advice and recommendations for customers.

To facilitate more dollars moving to digital channels, players like Google began launching features like AI chatbots to create ads more effortlessly. We covered how President Joe Biden’s surprise departure from the race upended spending; just prior to the election, we explored how the outcome would affect digital advertising’s future. #6: Amazon.

Generative AI gives payment providers unprecedented tools to create a more personalized purchase journey for consumers, but some use cases are easier to implement than others.