Albertsons Companies continues to explore how artificial intelligence (AI) best fits into its operations and ecommerce strategy, which now includes an expanded enterprise partnership with OpenAI and a ChatGPT plugin for the Safeway banner.
OpenAI detailed the companies’ latest work in a blog post on Oct. 1, noting that Albertsons’ teams were using ChatGPT to “navigate complexity, accelerate workflows and move promising ideas toward production faster.”
Albertsons is No. 17 in the Top 1000 Database. That database ranks the largest online retailers in North America by annual ecommerce sales.
OpenAI described the scope of its work with Albertsons as including ChatGPT Enterprise, in addition to what it referred to as “custom AI-powered experiences for its customers, data-driven recommendations and promotional insights built with the OpenAI API.”
Albertsons’ portfolio included more than 2,200 stores across its banners. Those banners encompass its namesake stores, Safeway, Vons, Jewel-Osco, Shaw’s, ACME and Tom Thumb.
Albertsons rolled out its Safeway plugin for ChatGPT in August.
“Research tells us that consumers are increasingly interested in using AI to help with grocery shopping,” said Jill Pavlovich, senior vice president, digital customer experience at Albertsons Companies, at the time. “By enabling our plugin in ChatGPT, we are making grocery shopping as simple as having a conversation by meeting our customers when and how they choose to shop.”
The plugin operates within the ChatGPT app experience. Once connected to ChatGPT and a shopper’s Safeway account, it enables a chat-style interface for planning grocery lists and making purchases.
Albertsons’ recent history of AI use
Previously, Albertsons became one of the first retailers to test ChatGPT’s ads in 2026. OpenAI welcomed the grocer, along with Target and Williams-Sonoma in the pilot, and its ads have continued to evolve alongside ChatGPT’s agentic commerce strategy throughout the year.
In addition to OpenAI, Albertsons has also worked with Google on an AI assistant experience. Notably, Albertsons was the first retailer to use Google Cloud’s conversational AI solution in 2025.
Looking ahead, OpenAI expects Albertsons to leverage its large language model to create internal predictive models, along with recommendations and insights about the grocer’s activities, thanks to employee tools, commerce-related apps and advertising solutions that OpenAI will power there.
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