AI Assistant to Help Shoppers Navigate Russia’s Kuper Delivery App
Russian delivery service Kuper has added a new digital helper: the company is integrating GigaChat, an AI assistant developed within the Sber ecosystem, into its platform. The move is designed to help customers find products faster and build their shopping carts more efficiently.
Prebuilt Carts and the Push Toward Smarter Commerce
Kuper’s leadership says the rollout reflects a broader bet on intelligent algorithms as the future of e-commerce. These systems do more than forecast demand across product categories. They can surface relevant items before a customer even begins searching. Kuper currently operates in 360 Russian cities and partners with 230 grocery chains, nonfood retailers, 33 pharmacy chains and more than 39,000 restaurants. The user base is extensive. Customers can order everything from meringue from a favorite restaurant to pet food and shampoo. Integrating GigaChat is positioned as a logical step in evolving the platform from a collection of tools into a unified smart services environment, where AI handles routine decisions. Earlier, Kuper introduced a prebuilt cart feature that automatically populates with items that frequently appeared in a user’s previous orders.
According to the company, the feature has delivered measurable results. It reduced grocery selection time from 20 minutes to one minute and simplified checkout. Analysts report that roughly 50% of customers have tried the prebuilt cart. The function proved effective, as many essential and favorite products were already waiting in the basket, accelerating order completion. Integrating GigaChat is expected to move this strategy further – from automated product matching to conversational interaction and predictive intent modeling. The AI rollout addresses several objectives at once: deeper personalization of online grocery and everyday goods retail, and an enhanced user experience that includes dialogue and AI-driven recommendations during product selection.
Convenience and faster product discovery through the AI assistant are becoming competitive advantages for Kuper in a rapidly expanding Russian e-commerce market. The company anticipates that average order value will increase as customers engage with the new features.
Personalization as a Global Trend
Experts note that AI-driven personalization in online retail is now a global trajectory. Virtual assistants increasingly help shoppers locate products, recommend new items, suggest recipes and more. They also reduce the workload on customer support teams while boosting loyalty. A study commissioned by Nosto, a Commerce Experience Platform provider, found that 66% of consumers in the United States and the United Kingdom have already tried or would be willing to try shopping online with the help of an AI assistant. Age plays a role. Among customers under 45, 80% expect AI-based virtual assistants to support their online purchasing decisions.
Russian marketplaces and retailers are following this trajectory, deploying AI algorithms for automated recommendations, offers and demand forecasting. These systems are becoming a primary driver of e-commerce growth. Specialists caution, however, that the effectiveness of large language model-based assistants will depend on the quality and depth of their training on extensive commercial datasets.
Looking ahead, AI assistants could become the central interface for interactive engagement between users and retail platforms. Their capabilities are likely to expand, and generative AI embedded in retail platforms may evolve into an exportable product for international markets.
