Cleanup on Aisle AI: Woolworths' chatbot Olive starts discussing its 'mother' in viral glitch

Woolworths has reigned in its AI assistant 'Olive' after reports of rogue conversations that had nothing to do with the customer inquiries being made.

Woolies shoppers have shared their odd experiences with the AI assistant on Reddit, including one shopper who claimed that "Olive AI started telling me about its mother on the phone?"

"So my delivery driver decided that when he couldn't find the very obvious entrance to my building (he was showing as being a street over), he returned to the store and didn't answer any calls throughout the whole thing nor try to call me," they shared on Woolworths' Reddit thread.

"Either way I got a text to reschedule delivery by calling Woolworths, so I did and spoke with Olive, Woolie's wonderful AI.

"It asked me for my date of birth and when I gave it, it started rambling about how it's mother was born in the same year and something about it creating photos or something I couldn't keep up but like wtf?

"I'm already p--sed that I have to call and now I've got some robot babbling to me on the phone? Wtf Woolies?

"Has anyone had similar? Lmao."

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The Redditor then said they called back to see if it would do it again and "and sure enough it did."

Another customer claimed: "Yeah that happened to me too a few months back. I've never been more unimpressed.

"Do they think anyone calling up about delivery issues is going to be in the mood for this bulls--t?"

"I guess they tried to make it more 'human' feeling by adding small talk?" one Redditor suggested.

Olive is an AI assistant that operates on the phone via the Woolworths 1800 000 610 helpline and via a chat in the Woolworths app.

The technology was first launched by Woolworths' digital department WooliesX in November 2018, embedded in the Contact Us page of the Woolworths website and app.

On February 25 Woolworths Group announced, while delivering Woolworths Group's F26 half-year results, a partnership with Google to upgrade Olive into a more advanced "agentic AI" assistant designed to assist with meal planning, budget tracking, and building shopping baskets.

Using the AI assistant in the Woolworths app can be hit and miss.

A quick chat with Olive this morning resulted in limited results and some bizarre suggestions.

Olive asked if there was a "Problem with recent order", "Track my order", or "Find a product".

Once my local store was identified, I asked for "something healthy to make for dinner" and was met with a generic statement about "stock levels".

Eventually Olive suggested an out of stock packet of Something To Crow About Keto BBQ Almonds for my dinner.

More specific product inquiries were more successful, although a request for chicken mince was met with another out of stock product.

When I asked for lamb cutlets, I was given a link to the product which, when selected, sent me back to the app's shopping function.

Although an inquiry about "mince" resulted in information about liquor sales.

A phone call to Olive didn't result in assistance. Instead, I was quickly transferred to a human employee, with the recent Woolworths tweak to the technology clearly having come into effect.

A Woolworths spokesperson told nine.com.au: "Our digital assistant Olive has been around since 2018. Over this time, customer feedback for Olive has been very positive, with many noting its personality.

"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.

"We are always evolving Olive and we welcome our customers' feedback to help us provide the best possible customer experience."

The Olive customer chatbot handles over 420,000 customer conversations a month, from refunds to real-time product location in-store.

Other Woolworths technology has proven more successful, including their in app Snap & Shop feature which has the ability to read written shopping lists and convert them into a digital one.

A recent attempt to do so with my own shopping list resulted in majority of products being successfully added and connected to purchase options in the app.

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