Tesco Launches Large-Scale Colleague Trial Of New AI Assistant, Designed To Lighten The Load For Customers

• Assistant - which will initially support customers with meal planning - is a big step forward for Tesco using AI to help customers
• Around 280,000 Tesco colleagues will be offered early access to a Beta trial to help shape the experience
• AI assistant will help with meal planning and building shopping baskets for customers, saving them time, stress and money

Tesco is trialling a new AI assistant, built into the Tesco app, as part of its long-term plan to use AI to help make life a little easier for customers.

Launching as a Beta trial with Tesco colleagues from today, the AI assistant will initially help customers with meal planning, providing a natural, two-way dialogue to offer inspiration in the form of personalised recipe ideas which will also account for different dietary preferences.

Once a customer has found a recipe that fits the kind of meal they had in mind, the AI assistant can then help customers build their shopping basket within the app, finding suitable products and using insights like a customer’s previous shopping history and preferences.

By helping customers who could be looking to use up leftover ingredients in the fridge or cupboard, the assistant will offer customers a personalised experience that saves them money and time, reduces food waste and takes some of the stress out of mealtime planning.

Built directly into the existing Tesco app, the retailer will be inviting around 280,000 of its colleagues to road test the assistant over the coming weeks, and use it in their day-to-day lives before it is eventually launched to all customers later this year.

With thousands of stores across the country, few people know British shoppers and communities better than Tesco colleagues. This Beta trial, which will be rolling out to UK Tesco colleagues over the coming weeks, is a unique opportunity to draw on the insights and experiences of the largest private sector workforce in the country to help build a first-class assistant, personalised to the needs of Tesco’s millions of customers.

We want to give customers the best possible experience every time they shop with Tesco, and this assistant gives us one more way to help them and make their lives a little easier.

“In the long term, this assistant has the potential to transform the way people shop with us – harnessing the power of AI to personalise the shopping experience for our customers in ways that ultimately save them time and money.

“Nobody is better placed than our colleagues to help us get this experience right; they understand the customers and communities they serve, and we cannot wait to see how they help shape and improve the assistant in the months ahead. Ken Murphy, Tesco CEO

In the coming weeks, Tesco colleagues will be given opportunities to provide feedback that will then play an important role in shaping the AI assistant – identifying features that work best, spotting new opportunities to inspire shoppers and helping to name the assistant.

The retailer will be looking to develop and upgrade the assistant in the future, expanding its functionality so it can help customers with more parts of their day-to-day lives and provide them with a genuinely intelligent, helpful shopping experience.

Tesco’s in-house app, data science and engineering teams have been working with Tomoro AI - a UK-based AI consultancy founded in 2023, in alliance with OpenAI - on the development of the new assistant, with the work taking place under strict secrecy protocols since autumn last year. 

Behind the scenes, AI has been supporting Tesco’s operations for years, helping refine processes and improve the overall shopping experience through channels like Clubcard where the retailer rewards customer loyalty and constantly increases the personalisation it offers customers.

The retailer has doubled the size of its technology team over the last five years as it looks to improve the customer experience, and Tesco also recently signed a three-year strategic partnership with European AI start-up, Mistral, to develop new AI capabilities.