New York, February 19, 2026 — Allison Smith details Wizard’s public debut as the latest entrant in a “rapid explosion of shopping agents,” tracing its evolution from a stealth B-to-B conversational commerce startup founded in 2021 to a consumer-facing AI shopping agent co-founded by Melissa Bridgeford and Marc Lore. 

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The company debuted publicly last week alongside a native checkout partnership with Best Buy, marking its first major retail tie-up after years of building largely out of view.

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Wizard is positioning itself as a dedicated shopping tool, rather than a general chatbot that happens to offer shopping as one of many features. While tools like ChatGPT and Gemini handle a wide range of tasks, Wizard was built specifically to search for products, compare options and guide users to checkout.

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The product centers on conversational queries, like “best noise-canceling headphones for gym and travel under $300.” Rather than returning thousands of links like a traditional search engine, Wizard presents five product recommendations at a time.

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Wizard analyzes “millions of data points,” including product attributes, customer reviews and editorial sources, and uses a proprietary ranking system to surface its recommendations, Bridgeford says.

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Wizard is working on additional native retail partnerships and payment integrations, she said, with plans to move toward a “universal cart” experience that allows purchases across participating merchants with a single tap.

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