Minty and Pie Gain New Investments

Minty, an AI‑driven shopping app based in Charlotte, North Carolina, has entered the Shopify ecosystem, offering merchants a new way to reach shoppers at the point of purchase intent.

How Minty works on Shopify

The free Minty app appears in the Shopify App Store and advertises compatibility with large language models such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude. According to the firm, the app can insert a cashback offer when a shopper shows buying intent, whether the interaction occurs in an AI chat, on a mobile device or within Chrome and Safari browsers.

Minty also claims the tool helps merchants identify visitors who leave a site without completing a transaction. By surfacing these shoppers in the moment they are ready to buy, the app aims to cut the high cart‑abandonment rates that online retailers typically face.

“The traditional shopper journey is going away and merchants can no longer wait for shoppers to come to them,” said Rodney Mason, Minty’s chief marketing officer, in a statement. “Shopping now happens across search, social, and AI conversations, and the moment a shopper decides to buy can pass in seconds.”

Data from Mastercard’s eCommerce Benchmarks report shows the average abandonment rate in June was 74.22 % in the Americas, highlighting the challenge Minty seeks to address.

Integration details and early positioning

Minty describes itself as the first cashback app that integrates live inside ChatGPT, with merchant profiles also appearing in Google AI Overviews and Apple Intelligence. The firm says the integration places Shopify merchants directly inside the shopping conversation, potentially reducing the time between interest and purchase.

While the app’s core function is to deliver a cash‑back incentive, it also provides merchants with data on shoppers who interact with the offer but do not convert. This insight could inform retargeting strategies or help refine product listings.

From a practical standpoint, merchants install the app through the Shopify App Store and configure the cashback parameters. Once active, the app monitors AI‑driven search and chat sessions for purchase signals, then surfaces the offer in real time.

Given the growing reliance on AI‑mediated interactions, the move reflects a broader shift of retailers seeking to embed commerce tools directly into conversational platforms.

Merchants can now test the feature.

Pie Tech’s new funding and its role in AI‑enabled commerce

Separately, Pie Tech Inc., which bills itself as an AI‑enabled growth platform for small businesses, announced a fresh investment from Amex Ventures. The funding follows the company’s emergence from stealth in June and a prior $19.5 million round, though the size of the latest investment was not disclosed.

Pie’s platform focuses on improving discoverability for AI agents, helping merchants attract customers through high‑intent channels such as Google Maps. The service also includes a Front Desk voice agent that can answer calls, make bookings and respond to customer queries.

Founded last year, Pie aims to simplify the process of connecting small‑business owners with AI tools that can drive traffic and streamline customer service.

Both Minty and Pie illustrate how payment and commerce providers are adapting to a marketplace where AI conversations increasingly shape buying decisions.

Future success will likely depend on how well merchants balance the immediacy of AI prompts with the need for a seamless checkout experience. If shoppers begin to expect instant incentives, the pressure on retailers to deliver real‑time offers could intensify, potentially reshaping standard e‑commerce workflows.

For now, merchants on Shopify have a new option to test the waters, while Pie’s backing by a major financial venture signals confidence in AI‑driven growth tools for smaller enterprises.