Debenhams Group has partnered with PayPal on an AI-driven shopping experience, becoming the first retailer in the UK to enable customers to discover, receive personalised recommendations and check out entirely via AI within the PayPal app.

The shopping experience allows shoppers to use an AI assistant within PayPal to ask for product suggestions, explore items and browse curated selections from brands, including Karen Millen and boohoo. Customers can then complete purchases directly within the chat experience, with PayPal automatically using saved account details for home delivery.

Unlike traditional search, the agentic AI assistant understands a shopper’s profile, asks follow-up questions and acts on their behalf – guiding customers to relevant product pages and tailoring recommendations to suit their tastes and budgets.

“This kind of innovation has the potential to fundamentally transform online retail, in a way we haven’t seen since the shift to mobile shopping,” said Dan Finley, CEO of Debenhams Group. “We’re proud to be the first UK retailer to partner with PayPal on this experience, bringing a faster, more intuitive way to shop to customers across our brands.”

Co-developed by PayPal and Debenhams Group, the experience is currently available to shoppers in the U.S., where it has also been integrated with AI tools, such as Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot. It will roll out across additional Debenhams Group brands over time, with a broader launch earmarked for the UK later this year.

“With agentic commerce, shopping becomes a conversation, not a search,” commented Mike Edmonds, VP of Agentic Commerce at PayPal.

“By embedding AI-powered discovery and checkout directly into the PayPal app, we’re helping customers move seamlessly from inspiration to purchase, while giving retailers like Debenhams Group a powerful new way to engage shoppers at scale,” Edmonds added.