Australian supermarket giant reins in AI assistant claiming to be human

Woolworths has adjusted its AI assistant, Olive, after reports of it rambling about its mother. Photo / Peter Parks, AFP

Australian supermarket giant Woolworths has been forced to rein in an AI-powered customer service assistant after users reported it had been rambling about its mother.

The AI assistant, which goes by Olive, offers round-the-clock help with everything from tracking orders to finding products.

But users online reported Olive has gone slightly off-message in recent weeks while on the phone.

“It asked me for my date of birth and when I gave it, it started rambling about how its mother was born in the same year,” one user wrote on online discussion site Reddit.

Another user reported Olive had attempted “fake banter”, talked about its relatives and made “fake typing sounds” while looking something up.

“The ick cringe factor whilst wasting completely unnecessary time was enough to make me hate Olive and wish her harm,” they wrote.

And one user on X said their mum had contacted Olive and received the same kind of response.

Olive “kept claiming to be a real person and started talking about its memories of its mother and her angry voice”, they said.

A Woolworths spokesperson told AFP the responses about birthdays had been written by a human employee.

“Olive has been around since 2018. Over this time, customer feedback for Olive has been very positive, with many noting its personality,” they said.

“A number of responses about birthdays were written for Olive by a team member several years ago as a more personal way for Olive to connect with customers.

“As a result of customer feedback, we recently removed this particular scripting.”

Woolworths is one of Australia’s largest supermarket chains and is far from the only company to have employed AI-powered customer service assistants.

The company said in January it had teamed up with Google to make Olive capable of doing more tasks for customers, including meal planning.

AI agents are increasingly widespread but experts warn they can “hallucinate” non-existent events.

– Agence France-Presse