AI Chatbots Promise Easy Thanksgiving Carts. The Reality Cost $202

Safeway's AI shopping assistant built a 51-item Thanksgiving cart totaling just over $202 — more items than most shoppers would ever want to sift through. That result came from a hands-on test by the "More than a Store" column, which this fall pitted grocers' conversational AI tools against their old-school curated bundles for holiday meal planning.

The verdict: chatbots lost. Curated pages and preset meal bundles delivered a faster, simpler path to a complete Thanksgiving basket.

Why grocers are racing to AI — and what went wrong

The test tapped into a fast-moving trend. Albertsons rolled out its agentic AI shopping assistant across its banners' websites at the end of 2025, with app availability planned for early 2026. Instacart, Shipt and DoorDash all launched AI-powered conversational shopping assistants earlier this year.

The column's author tested the assistants with one identical prompt: "Build a basket of items for a Thanksgiving meal that feeds 10 people and includes a frozen whole turkey, pumpkin pie ingredients and classic sides."

Safeway's chatbot responded with a thorough list spanning several protein options, 14 types of produce, pantry staples, snacks, beverages, plus ingredients for cranberry sauce, stuffing and pumpkin pie. It then asked: "Want me to turn this into cart-ready product matches and add everything to your cart, or keep it as a checklist only?"

The resulting shoppable list held 51 items at just over $202.

Where Safeway's assistant stumbled

The AI's picks raised merchandising questions. It selected name brands — Pillsbury pie crusts, Ocean Spray canned cranberry sauce, French's Original Crispy Fried Onions — that cost more than Albertsons' store-brand versions featured on the grocer's own curated Thanksgiving webpage.

It also guessed wrong on effort level. The list included both a 15-ounce can of Libby's pure pumpkin and a roughly 4- to 5-pound pie pumpkin, hedging between scratch baking and the can — even though the tester had never made pumpkin pie from an actual pumpkin.

Kroger's assistant: smoother, but still off

Kroger's tool ran a bit smoother. Its first response produced a shoppable list of 23 products — a 16-pound turkey, 10 pounds of potatoes, family-size vegetables and ingredients for two pumpkin pies. An estimated total of $97.03 appeared next to the "Add All to Cart" button.

Asked for recipes, the chatbot returned six, including cornbread sausage stuffing, buttery mashed potatoes, dinner rolls and roasted green beans. It added practical tips, such as preparing cranberry sauce one to two days ahead.

But the recipes didn't match the basket. The AI had picked a box of cornbread stuffing with no sausages, and ready-to-bake dinner rolls instead of scratch ingredients. The chatbot caught the gap and suggested asking it to "Add the missing ingredients to my cart." After a few more questions, the final "Complete Thanksgiving Basket" reached 43 items at an estimated $127.73, factoring in about $2.89 in savings.

Both baskets materialized only after several minutes of back-and-forth. The column's conclusion: AI chatbots could prove useful for brainstorming and nutrition research, but they don't yet work well as actual shopping tools.

What beat the bots: bundles and curated pages

Four clicks. That's all it took to add one of The Fresh Market's holiday meal bundles to a cart. Each meal clearly lists the premade dishes included and the suggested serving size, making gaps — dessert, drinks — easy to spot. The specialty grocer also offers take-and-bake sides, bakery pies, dinner rolls and ready-to-eat appetizers.

Safeway's Thanksgiving bundle tool offers pumpkin pie ingredients, a fresh apple pie and a frozen ready-to-bake apple pie, plus reminders for commonly forgotten items like foil and food storage containers. The tester found Safeway's curated webpage — with a live estimated total as items were added and deleted — more intuitive than the grocer's thorough but overwhelming chatbot.

Aldi took the speed crown. Its one-click shoppable basket covers nine items from its roughly $40 meal bundle, which feeds 10 people with a 16-pound turkey. The bundle currently excludes cranberries, a turkey and pumpkin pie mix, with all items becoming available in the coming weeks, according to Aldi's website.

What this means for the holiday sales season

The so-what for grocers: as this year's holiday season approaches, retailers with AI assistants would be wise to prominently feature shoppable lists and curated webpages too, so they don't miss sales from customers wary of conversational commerce.

The column expects chatbots to become more polished by Thanksgiving next year. For now, though, not-so-revolutionary merchandising options — shoppable lists, preset meals, curated pages — serve up the better online shopping experience.

Grocers, the column concluded, still know their customers better than AI does.