This Wednesday, Starbucks started offering a new feature for users of OpenAI's ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot, a beta app connected to ChatGPT that can recommend orders based off a “vibe” and helps users order.
“Whether you’re describing your mood or sharing a photo that captures your vibe, the Starbucks app in ChatGPT translates your inspiration into Starbucks drink suggestions crafted just for you,” said a press release from the company.
It said that once a user picks a drink from one of the recommendations, that the app will help them customize it, pick a location to purchase it from and finish the order with Starbucks.
“The beta Starbucks app in ChatGPT is part of our ongoing effort to make drink discovery at Starbucks a personal experience,” said the press release. “We’ve enhanced discovery in the Starbucks app with a trending beverage category and a secret menu, harnessing the power of customization that occurs every day in social media and with our baristas. And now, in ChatGPT, we are using AI to support something very human: helping you discover a drink you’ll love.”
What is the actual Starbucks ChatGPT experience like?
Depending on what type ChatGPT account users have, getting to the Starbucks AI experience will be different. Using a free account on an iPhone, we tried simply typing the prompts in as suggested by the Starbucks press release, but we just got regular ChatGPT responses, not real interaction with the Starbucks app.
Then, a Google search (using its Gemini AI tool) helped us get to the GPT Store. In some updated free versions of ChatGPT, this feature appears to be hidden, ChatGPT later explained to us. Once in the GPT Store section of the app through a link provided by Gemini, we were able to connect the Starbucks app in ChatGPT to our account.
Now, we were ready to start getting recommendations from the app. We asked Starbucks to recommend a drink for a “cozy, rainy, spring day” and it gave us six options, including images and descriptions: White Chocolate Mocha, Caramel Macchiato, Vanilla Crème, Hot Chocolate, Sugar-Free Vanilla Protein Latte and a Caramel Protein Matcha.
We picked the Sugar-Free Vanilla Protein Latte in the recommended size, Grande (medium, or 16 fluid ounces), removed one of the four pumps of sugar-free vanilla syrup and added some lavender power (for fun), all in the app. Then, we tapped “add to cart” and then “checkout,” which brought us to a map feature where we could pick a store.
At this point, we realized that we needed to update the Starbucks app on the iPhone we were using (whoops). Then, the app took us to the Starbucks website, but the drink we picked was sold out at the first store we tried. A second store did have it in stock, and the site gave us the option to order the drink for $8.25.
After that we also tried the photo recommendation feature using an image from the Vans website of a woman with bright red hair, wearing a green and checkerboard sweatshirt and gray pants. Starbucks’ ChatGPT app responded with six options (with images and descriptions) again, including five versions of the Matcha Latte as well as the Vanilla Crème.
We skipped the actual purchases, but we determined that the Starbucks ChatGPT does recommend drinks, allows you to customize them and bring you to the Starbucks site to put the order in.
