Albertsons expands OpenAI work across grocery teams and shopping tools

Albertsons Companies is expanding its work with OpenAI across its US grocery business, OpenAI said on October 1, 2026. The retailer is using ChatGPT Enterprise and OpenAI-powered applications with selected teams, while developing shopping tools and recommendations for customers. The announcement describes wider ambitions for a Safeway shopping experience in ChatGPT, but does not measure whether the tools save staff time or change shoppers’ spending.

The distinction matters because Safeway’s ChatGPT plugin was already announced in August. The October statement sets out how Albertsons intends to use OpenAI technology across more of its business; it does not mark the first launch of the Safeway tool. OpenAI says the retailer operates more than 2,200 stores and serves over 36 million customers each week, giving the plans a potentially large audience if they expand.

How Safeway shopping works in ChatGPT

A Safeway shopper can begin with a recipe, photo, digital list or a request such as planning a dinner. According to OpenAI, ChatGPT then presents relevant grocery products and savings, helps assemble a cart and directs the shopper to Safeway for checkout. The purchase is completed on Safeway’s platform, rather than entirely within the conversation. The companies describe this as a way to move from an idea for a meal to a grocery order.

Grocery Dive’s August report described a shopper typing “@Safeway” into ChatGPT with a request, then adding or removing suggested products before being redirected to Safeway’s commerce site. Its account shows what the plugin was designed to do when Albertsons announced it on August 5. The October announcement places that existing customer tool alongside the retailer’s broader work on staff applications, product suggestions and promotional decisions.

What Albertsons is adding for its teams

OpenAI says selected Albertsons technology teams and business functions are using ChatGPT Enterprise and other applications powered by its technology. The retailer is exploring whether those tools can streamline work and help employees make decisions. OpenAI describes a focused rollout in which Albertsons evaluates applications before developing practices for wider use, rather than a completed deployment across every store or department.

The partnership also covers applications built with the OpenAI API. OpenAI says Albertsons is combining predictive models with generative AI to produce data-driven recommendations and promotional insights for merchants. The stated purpose is to help staff assess business considerations behind decisions such as which products to promote and how to explain a recommendation. The announcement gives no measured productivity gain from this work.

For customers, OpenAI describes work on more personalised help with baskets, repeat purchases, recipes and meal plans using preferences and information provided by shoppers. Those descriptions set out applications under development or exploration; they do not establish that each feature is available to all Albertsons customers. The Safeway ChatGPT experience is the specific customer tool described in both the October announcement and the earlier independent report.

The August launch and plans for other grocery brands

Albertsons announced the Safeway plugin on August 5, and Grocery Dive reported its launch the next day. Grocery Dive also reported that the plugin built on Albertsons’ existing AI shopping assistant and Ask AI capabilities, and that digital customer experience was one of the grocer’s four AI priorities for 2026. Those earlier efforts provide context for the October expansion.

OpenAI says the ChatGPT shopping experience is planned to extend beyond Safeway to Albertsons, Vons, Jewel-Osco, Shaw’s, ACME and Tom Thumb. It gives no dates for adding those brands. Shoppers at those chains therefore have no timetable in the announcement for when the described ChatGPT experience might become available to them.

What is known about shoppers’ use of grocery AI

The wider market offers a reason to separate potential reach from actual use. Grocery Dive reported in February that 15% of US consumers surveyed by retail analytics firm dunnhumby had used AI tools such as ChatGPT to help with grocery shopping in the preceding year. Shopping lists and price comparisons were leading uses. That survey figure concerns grocery AI generally, not the Safeway plugin, which was announced months later.

In the same account, Grocery Dive said 28% of respondents were likely to use AI when shopping in the following year. Among those who did not use it, 38% said they saw no need and 37% preferred making their own decisions. The survey suggests interest and resistance both exist, but it cannot show how shoppers responded to Albertsons’ particular tool after its launch.

Dunnhumby dates its US Consumer Trends Tracker to February 18 and describes shoppers responding to inflation pressure and uncertain purchasing power. Its public page does not display the detailed survey findings without a report download, so the percentages above are attributed to Grocery Dive’s account of the study. They provide context for the partnership, not evidence of a result from it.

The immediate unanswered questions are practical ones: how many Safeway shoppers use the plugin, whether it affects purchases or savings, and whether Albertsons staff gain time from the internal tools. Neither OpenAI’s October announcement nor the cited independent coverage quantifies those outcomes. The companies have also given no schedule for bringing the ChatGPT shopping experience to the other grocery brands.