HomeWinBuzzer NewsMicrosoft's Personal Shopping Assistant Extension for Edge Appears in Store

Microsoft’s Personal Shopping Assistant Extension for Edge Appears in Store

The extension is listed as "currently unavailable," but the addition signals that Microsoft is planning an Edge release soon.

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You may have forgotten about 's Personal Shopping Assistant. The extension launched on Chrome back in June, and keeps track of what products users are looking at while also giving comparisons.

We mentioned then that an Edge extension was in the work, and the company now appears to be putting the framework in place. A listing on the Microsoft Store suggests that the launch isn't too far off.

Twitter personality WalkingCat was the first to notice, informing users this morning:

https://twitter.com/h0x0d/status/773298549559693312

The page gives no information on a release date, only displaying a “Microsoft Personal Shopping Assistant is currently unavailable.” message. However, it does confirm that all of the latest features will be available.

The changelog notes the addition of new websites, as well as the heart-shaped quick favorite button. The extension will also support a “send to mobile” option,  as well as price alerts.

Microsoft has also provided a number of screenshots of it running it Edge, which you can see for yourself below:

Expansion to Messaging Platforms

Though PSA is currently only available as an extension, and mobile web client, Microsoft has bigger plans. In the future, the service will be extended to popular messaging platforms.

The company describes it as a “conversational bot,” and mentions Skype. As such, we're guessing that it will be available as a Skype Bot soon.

Releasing Personal Shopping Assistant should help bulk out the collection of Edge extensions, which is currently quite small. The only other shopping assistant is Amazon's, which offers some similar functionality.

However, PSA has the advantage of being non-biased and automatic. The Amazon Assistant comes with notifications on other websites with their version of the product. This happens even when it's cheaper on the site you're visiting.

With PSA, you can compare items from multiple sites at once, rather than just Amazon. Although you can favorite items, most of the tracking takes place automatically, which can be more useful.

As a result, the extension will aim at a different audience – one more focused on getting the best deal, rather than die-hard Amazon fans.

You can read the store page here for more information, though you'll have to wait a little while before you can download it.

Ryan Maskell
Ryan Maskellhttps://ryanmaskell.co.uk
Ryan has had a passion for gaming and technology since early childhood. Fusing the skills from his Creative Writing and Publishing degree with profound technical knowledge, he enjoys covering news about Microsoft. As an avid writer, he is also working on his debut novel.

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