Jared Kirkwood discovered he could just get ChatGPT to do most of the heavy lifting of his weekly grocery shop. (Source: TikTok/Getty)
A Woolworths shopper has discovered how to make artificial intelligence (AI) do most of the heavy lifting for his weekly grocery haul. Perusing the aisles of a supermarket, whether that’s in real life or online, can take more than an hour out of your day.
Jared Kirkwood said it was the “most hated chore” of his week, but realised he could get ChatGPT to do it for him and it would take a fraction of the time. Not only has it knocked about $60 off his shop, but he said his meals were far healthier than when he was doing his shopping on his own.
“I didn’t actually give it any prompts to choose healthy options, but it did that itself, and the results were incredible,” he said.
ChatGPT and other AI platforms have what’s called Agent mode.
Instead of just spitting out an answer to your question, an AI agent can do tasks on your behalf, as long as it has enough information.
Kirkwood told ChatGPT’s Agent to do his weekly shop at Woolies to see how much it could do on a $180 budget.
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He said he was training for a marathon and wanted three meals a day that would give him enough energy to train effectively.
The Melbourne-based AI property startup founder said he also wanted each recipe to give him enough leftovers so he only had to cook every second day.
“It worked perfectly,” Kirkwood told Yahoo Finance.
The agent added everything to his cart and all he had to do was review it and then decide whether he would get it delivered or do Click and Collect, with his cart coming to just $120.
In two tests of the technology, Kirkwood said it took between 17 to 24 minutes for his shopping basket to be full.
But he wanted to take it one step further.
“I asked if it could make me a PowerPoint presentation explaining what I was meant to cook on each day, the ingredients I needed for each meal, and how to cook them,” he said.
“Now I’ve got all of my meals planned out for me for the week.”
Kirwood, who recently launched Inspectsy, a startup helping renters use AI for their six-monthly inspections, said when he did his grocery shop in-person, he would regularly get unconsciously “seduced” by supermarket specials.
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Whether it was a few sweet treats here and there, or items that he technically didn’t need but thought they were good value, there was always something adding tens of dollars to his shop.
That’s how he was able to knock around $60 from his basket as he was only buying food and items that were absolutely necessary.
“You don’t have to walk down the confectionary aisle anymore and be seduced by their professional layout,” he told Yahoo Finance.
“There’s huge benefits there that go beyond the convenience.”
He also got far more value for money because he wasn’t throwing out bags of spinach or leftover cucumber that didn’t get used.
Every item ChatGPT picked out was designed to be used in its entirety or across several meals, which meant Kirkwood was able to drastically cut down on food waste.
These Agents depend on getting enough information to make it worth your while.
If you just told ChatGPT to whip up a shopping list, it could pick anything and everything.
But explaining your household and diet situation, your budget, if you have any dietary or fitness goals, how much you want to be cooking, and other lifestyle aspects can mean the difference between an accurate result and one a bit left-of-field.
You could save loads of time each week by getting AI to do your shopping for you, but you need to make sure you give it enough information. (Source: TikTok/Getty)
You could use this also at Coles or any retailer that you shop at regularly.
“We all need to become professional prompt engineers,” Kirkwood said.
“If you want it to be done really clean, you’d need to spend a little bit of time back and forth with ChatGPT around the exact shopping list.”
He said when the Agent completed his shopping list, you could go in and change anything you did or didn’t like, and explain to the AI your preferences so it could know that for future shops.
“I’m pretty laid back when it comes to what I’ll eat, but it gave me tuna wraps for lunch, a chickpea rice bowl for dinner, and even chicken green curry with rice. It was really good,” he added.
“It was actually better than what I’ve been eating, because it actually gets a little bit creative.”
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