How Albertsons Companies is reimagining retail from the inside out

Albertsons Companies, which operates over 2,200 stores across brands including Safeway, Vons, Jewel-Osco, Shaw's, ACME, and Tom Thumb serving more than 36 million weekly customers, is deepening its partnership with OpenAI to integrate AI across its organization. The company uses ChatGPT Enterprise and OpenAI API-powered tools to help teams in digital shopping, store operations, fulfillment, and merchandising work more efficiently and accelerate innovation. A key consumer-facing feature is the new Safeway experience in ChatGPT, which lets shoppers start with a recipe, photo, digital list, or simple request such as "Plan pizza night for four" and have AI surface relevant products, savings, and a cart ready for checkout. Jill Pavlovich, SVP of Digital Customer Experience at Albertsons Companies, said: "This is another practical way we are using AI to reduce friction and make everyday shopping easier." According to dunnhumby's February 2026 United States Consumer Trends Tracker, shoppers are more open to using AI for groceries than for other purchases. Behind the scenes, Albertsons combines predictive models with generative AI to provide explainable, data-driven recommendations and promotional insights for merchants. The Safeway ChatGPT experience is planned to expand to other Albertsons brands over time, forming a 360-degree partnership built to scale across retail.

(Source：OpenAI)