The update moves Pixie beyond personalised product recommendations towards a more conversational approach to online grocery shopping, with customers able to ask questions, share images, and receive suggestions tailored to their needs.
Developed in-house by the ShopriteX team, the functionality combines product, customer and contextual data to help shoppers navigate everyday grocery decisions.
Pixie Smart Chat is designed to respond to the way consumers actually shop; often without a fixed shopping list and with decisions influenced by factors such as the occasion, weather, and previous purchases.
Planning a weekend braai, for example, could prompt Pixie to suggest products suited to the weather and occasion, while a colder day could trigger recommendations for comfort meals.
Customers can also use images as part of the shopping process.
A shopper needing replacement razor blades can photograph their existing razor and ask Pixie to help identify a suitable replacement. Similarly, a photograph of a handwritten family recipe can be uploaded, with Pixie helping identify the ingredients required and add them to a Sixty60 basket.
The feature effectively turns the retailer's app into a conversational layer over the shopping journey, allowing customers to move from an idea or need to a completed basket without necessarily knowing exactly which products they are looking for.
Food inspiration is another major part of the update.
Customers can ask Pixie for meal ideas and receive recipes, ingredient lists and step-by-step cooking instructions. Ingredients can then be added directly to a Sixty60 basket.
The service also includes an exclusive selection of recipes from Jamie Oliver, giving shoppers access to additional inspiration while they plan their meals.
Recipes can be saved, downloaded and shared, while recent conversations allow customers to return to previous chats rather than starting the shopping journey from scratch.
This creates a link between inspiration and fulfilment, with the same platform helping consumers decide what to cook, what they need and how to get it.
Pixie Smart Chat is also designed to become more useful through repeated interactions.
The assistant learns from customers' shopping behaviour and preferences, allowing it to make increasingly personalised recommendations.
For regular Sixty60 users, this could mean easier replenishment of household staples, suggestions based on preferred products or assistance with keeping a pantry stocked.
The approach reflects a broader shift in e-commerce towards AI systems that understand shopping intent rather than simply responding to keywords or search terms.
Instead of a customer having to know the name of a product, Pixie can potentially work backwards from the customer's need.
The update builds on Sixty60's introduction of Pixie earlier in 2026. The retailer describes Sixty60 as the first online retailer in South Africa to introduce a personalised AI shopping assistant.
Since its launch in April 2026, Pixie has helped customers add more than four million products to their baskets. In one example of the speed the technology can bring to grocery shopping, a customer completed a shop worth more than R1,500 in 15 seconds.
With Smart Chat, Shoprite is now extending the role of AI from recommendation into conversation.
Neil Schreuder, chief strategy and innovation officer for the Shoprite Group, says the objective is to remove friction from the shopping journey.
“With Pixie, our goal was to use AI to remove friction from grocery shopping by understanding what customers need. Now Pixie moves beyond smart recommendations, becoming a 24/7 personal shopping butler.”
The launch reflects the growing role of AI in retail, where the technology is increasingly being used not simply to automate tasks but to make digital shopping experiences more intuitive.
For Sixty60, the opportunity lies in combining conversational AI with its existing grocery catalogue, customer data and fulfilment infrastructure.
A customer can now start with a photo, voice note, recipe, craving or simple question, rather than a traditional product search, and use Pixie to turn that starting point into a shopping journey.
Pixie Smart Chat will be phased out to Xtra Savings Plus subscribers over the next few weeks, giving the retailer an opportunity to expand the functionality while gathering further insight into how customers use conversational AI in their everyday shopping.
The latest update positions Pixie as more than a digital search tool – and potentially as a new interface between consumers, grocery retailers and the increasingly personalised world of AI-powered commerce.
