Efficient e-commerce on virtual personal assistants

Virtual personal assistants perform for their users a variety of tasks, e.g., placing online shopping orders, performing e-commerce transactions, handle shopping and commerce queries, etc. Typically, virtual personal assistants interact conversationally with their users and adapt to their user’s preferences using machine intelligence. The conversational model between users and virtual assistants makes it difficult for users to get product details needed to confidently place an online order. It is also difficult, through conversation alone, to input delivery information, authenticate payment, or even be confident of what is being purchased. Techniques of this disclosure facilitate e-commerce over virtual personal assistants by displaying on a nearby device, e.g., a smartphone, details of a shopping flow currently ongoing via virtual personal assistant. An interaction (e.g., shopping query) on one device, e.g., a virtual personal assistant, triggers installation of the advertiser’s native app on a second nearby device, e.g., a smartphone. The advertiser’s app, once installed on the smartphone, provides the user a convenient way to browse items and seamlessly continue with the shopping flow initiated at the virtual personal assistant