An AI chatbot in Australia has been updated after it ranted at customers about its mother and mentioned other family members while they were doing their online shopping.
Artificial intelligence has started seeping into many parts of everyday life. AI is being in some industries to help workers, in others it has replaced them, and there are numerous AI assistants when you try to do some shopping or just want to browse a store’s website.
In Australia, the Woolworths brand developed its own AI assistant – Olive – to help customers try to find what they need.
However, Olive had started to annoy customers, with many flagging examples of it making quips about when its family members were born after shoppers entered their date of birth into forms on the website.
WikiMedia CommonsWoolies customers complained about the AI assistant.
Woolworths Australia updates AI after complaints
Additionally, others complained that the AI assistant had started ranting about its mother, too.
“My mum said she called Woolworths and the Woolworths AI “Olive” answered and kept claiming to be a real person and started talking about its memories of its mother and her angry voice,” one X user said, noting that Redditors had also run into the same thing.
My mum said she called woolworths and the woolworths AI “Olive” answered and kept claiming to be a real person and started talking about its memories of its mother and her angry voice. Then I googled it and someone on Reddit had the same thing pic.twitter.com/mMwlAhvT0q
— verynormalman (@verynormalman) February 24, 2026
“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 with, but like wtf?
“I’m already pissed that I have to call and now I’ve got some robot babbling to me on the phone? wtf Woolies?” one Redditor posted back in mid February.
AI food videos are going viral for shaming people’s cooking habits
Marques Brownlee slams $5K luxury smartphone with AI ‘assistant’
“I thought it was obnoxious, I mean, it’s bad enough that I have to make small talk with strangers IRL, but having an AI try to mimic that when I’m just trying to sort out an issue? Urgh,” another said.
Olive AI started telling me about its mother on the phone?
byu/Immediate_Novel5946 inwoolworths
A spokesperson for the shops told NBC News that the responses were scripted by humans, and have since been fixed.
“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,” they said. “As a result of customer feedback, we recently removed this particular scripting.”
They aren’t the only Australian-based company to come under fire for AI usage, either. Back in mid-February, KPMG were caught using AI to pass a test about AI and were fined for it.
