Kifli.hu has introduced an AI-powered shopping assistant called Maia that significantly reduces the time parents spend preparing for the new school year by turning school supply lists into complete shopping carts within seconds.
Parents no longer need to search for notebooks, folders, pencils and other supplies item by item. They can photograph the school supply list, paste or type it into Maia, or dictate it using Maia Voice. The AI assistant interprets the list, finds matching products in the assortment, and assembles the basket almost instantly — cutting one of the most time-consuming back-to-school tasks down to a few simple steps.
"One of the greatest values technology can deliver to our customers is time savings. Back-to-school is a prime example: instead of parents scrolling through long supply lists and hunting down each product individually, they can assemble the entire cart in seconds with a single photo and Maia's assistance. At Kifli.hu we want to use artificial intelligence exactly for this: to make everyday life easier so families can spend more time on what really matters," said Szabó Dániel, CEO of Kifli.hu.
Assortment built on real needs
AI alone is not enough — the right products must be available. Ahead of this school season, Kifli.hu’s parent company, the international Rohlik Group, asked customers across its markets to share school supply lists received from schools and indicate which products they would need. Based on the feedback collected, Kifli.hu expanded its back-to-school assortment to better reflect the actual needs of schools and families.
The initiative is part of the company’s broader back-to-school strategy to become a one-stop online supermarket for families, aiming to have everything required for the new school year available in one place, thereby reducing shopping time, legwork and the mental load associated with organization.
Embedding AI into the shopping experience
The school-list feature is another example of how the Rohlik Group is integrating artificial intelligence into its customer experience. The group aims to become Europe’s leading AI-focused online grocery retailer. Kifli.hu’s in-house AI assistant Maia supports users across the entire shopping journey: product discovery, recipe suggestions, basket compilation, selection of delivery time windows, order management, customer service handling, and secure payments.
In 2026 the Rohlik Group launched one of Europe’s first food-shopping applications officially integrated with ChatGPT, and introduced its own Model Context Protocol (MCP) infrastructure. This open communication standard allows AI to connect securely with different applications and services, making Kifli.hu available across more AI platforms and intelligent assistants.
Maia’s school-list functionality offers tangible time savings and simplification for families preparing for the school year, and aligns with the company’s longer-term strategy to use AI to improve the overall online retail customer experience.
