Albertsons Cos. is deepening its work with OpenAI, bringing a new Safeway shopping experience directly into ChatGPT. Customers can start with a recipe, photo, or request such as “Plan pizza night for four,” and ChatGPT will surface products, apply savings, build a cart, and direct them to Safeway to complete the purchase. The company says the feature will eventually extend to its other banners, including Albertsons, Vons, Jewel-Osco, Shaw’s, ACME, and Tom Thumb.
Behind the scenes, Albertsons is also using ChatGPT Enterprise and OpenAI-powered applications to help teams in retail technology and business functions streamline work and move ideas into production faster. The company says it is combining predictive models with generative AI to deliver explainable recommendations and promotional insights for merchants, while keeping a focus on practices that can scale across the organization.
The announcement cites dunnhumby’s February 2026 Consumer Trends Tracker, which found shoppers are more open to using AI for groceries than for other purchases. Jill Pavlovich, Albertsons’ SVP of digital customer experience, called the Safeway experience “another practical way we are using AI to reduce friction and make everyday shopping easier.” The work touches more than 2,200 stores serving over 36 million customers each week, though the source does not provide independent evidence of customer adoption or measurable impact.