ShopAssist AI Transparency
Understanding how our AI shopping assistant works
AI transparency at ShopAssist
ShopAssist is an AI shopping assistant for eCommerce stores.
It helps shoppers ask questions in natural language, discover relevant products, compare options, and find store information such as sizing, availability, delivery, returns, or order status where configured.
When you use ShopAssist on a merchant's website, you are interacting with an AI system. The AI assistant generates responses from store data, product catalogue information, configured knowledge sources, and the previous conversation context.
What ShopAssist can help with
- Finding products that match a shopper's stated needs
- Comparing product differences based on available product information
- Answering questions about products, policies, delivery, returns, sizing, compatibility, ingredients, or usage where that information has been provided by the merchant
- Guiding shoppers to product pages, favourites, or adding to cart actions where configured
- Supporting order-status lookup where the merchant has enabled that feature
What shoppers should know
AI-generated responses may occasionally be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect.
Product availability, pricing, delivery times, and promotions should be checked on the product page, cart, checkout, or official store policy pages before purchase.
For sensitive topics: For health-related, supplement, cosmetic, legal, financial, safety, pregnancy, allergy, medication, or other sensitive questions, shoppers should rely on qualified professionals and the merchant's approved product information.
How ShopAssist uses data
ShopAssist processes shopper interactions to provide the assistant experience for the merchant's store. This can include chat inputs, product questions, interaction history, and session metadata.
ShopAssist acts as a data processor for merchant widget interactions. The merchant remains responsible for its store, product data, customer relationship, privacy notices, and legal basis for processing.
Data handling is described in the ShopAssist Privacy Policy and applicable data-processing agreements.
How recommendations work
ShopAssist recommendations are based on the shopper's question, the store catalogue, product attributes, availability information where available, merchant-configured rules, and approved knowledge sources.
Ethical guidelines: ShopAssist should not be configured to exploit shopper vulnerabilities, create fake urgency, make unsupported product claims, or pressure shoppers with misleading sales tactics.
Suggested merchant disclosure
Merchants using ShopAssist should make AI use clear to shoppers. A practical disclosure available on ShopAssist is:
"You're chatting with an AI assistant powered by ShopAssist"
Sources
- • European Commission, AI Act overview: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/regulatory-framework-ai
- • European Commission, Article 50 transparency FAQs: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/faqs/transparency-obligations-under-article-50-ai-act
- • European Commission, Article 50 transparency guidelines: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/guidelines-transparency-obligations-providers-and-deployers-ai-systems
- • European Commission, AI literacy: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/ai-talent-skills-and-literacy