Nishad Patne

Projects / Allie

Completed

Allie: a shopping AI profile that travels with you between apps

1 / 4The four assistants we tested, side by side, with what each did well and badly.

Product
Allie, the assistant in Skaimart, a concept shopping app
Role
  • Nishad P conceived and directed the AI profile, its saved personality and sharing
  • a colleague designed the screens and the other features
Team
Nishad P and one designer
Timeline
September 2025, 4 days
Status
  • Concept
  • Figma prototype

Each store's assistant works toward that store's goals.

I wanted an assistant that's mine: a profile I set once (focus, price, quality, brand familiarity), edit mid-chat, and share with any app that supports it. With it, I'm the same cheapo shopper in Safeway or Walmart.

01

Concept and work

  • The questionAI was being added to every shopping app. Was any of it useful?

  • What we testedthe four apps with a live iOS shopping chatbot at the time: Amazon (Rufus), Walmart (Ask Sparky), Safeway (Ask AI, beta) and Home Depot (Magic Apron). Each got the same six tasks: search by asking, product questions, compare, store navigation, policy and service, recommendations.

1 / 2The four assistants we tested, side by side, with what each did well and badly.
02

Also prototyped

  • Voice and text in the same chat

  • Product and comparison cards inside the conversation

  • "Ask Allie" in context on every screen

The three interventions: the shareable Allie AI profile, comparison cards, and voice plus text.
Setting and sharing the Allie AI profile.
Comparing products and getting recommendations based on the profile.

Skaimart walkthroughs.

  • Setting up the profile: from Ask Allie to Manage Allie AI Profile (focus, price, quality, brand), saving it, then sharing it with other apps
  • Shopping with it: asking about headphones, comparing brands in cards, a profile-based pick, editing the profile mid-chat, then a follow-up by voice

Testing: informal. 20 friends and colleagues saw Amazon's assistant and Allie side by side and said which they preferred.

03

A year on

The ideas held up pretty well, and moved into natural AI integration. Everything we prototyped now ships somewhere: asking from the search bar, comparisons in chat, voice, remembered preferences.

  • Amazon retired Rufus on May 13, 2026, folding it into Alexa for Shopping: it remembers your preferences across phone, laptop and Echo, and you can ask what it knows about you and edit it.

  • Walmart put Sparky inside ChatGPT in March 2026. The store's agent travels; your profile doesn't.

  • The profile went half‑wayeach platform still keeps your data. But startups like MemoryPlugin and AI Context Flow now store and sync your chatbot context in one place, and assistants import each other's memory.

  • Persuasion moved into the chatsuggestions can now nudge subtly. In a 2026 study, a persuasive shopping chatbot more than doubled how often people picked sponsored products, labels or not.

  • Agents grew upthey now compare, track prices and buy for you, across stores.