E-Commerce
According to a survey conducted by Tractica – a market intelligence firm that focuses on human interaction with technology – revenue of AI in e-commerce is expected to reach $36.8 billion worldwide by 2025. From understanding customer behaviour to improving warehouse-related issues, AI has revolutionised the e-commerce industry.
Since consumer sentiment has a lot to do with consumer spending, AI is plugging into this and listening intently. As a result, brands are not only able to fine tune their products based on consumer feedback, but are also consciously working to better buying experiences for a tech-savvy consumer. E-commerce, thus, is irreversibly changing the brand-customer engagement experience.
AI-driven automation is a case in point.
Amazon, for instance, uses extremely sophisticated shopping recommendations based on some super smart algorithms. The company also uses AI to drive prices dynamically – i.e. costs get reduced to get more sales when needed, while prices increase as demands go up. This algorithm ensures maximum sales and drives revenue automatically. That’s AI for you.
Source: entrepreneur.com/article/288098
Then there’s IMB’s Watson that’s doing its bit in transforming the e-commerce customer experience. Brands are using this (and other such AI solutions) to fine tune customer experience and provide them with the best options. The North Face, a large e-Commerce retailer, for instance is using AI to provide better customer experiences. The brand uses IBM’s Watson to help shoppers find their jackets. Using voice AI technology, the customers are asked questions about product usage (when or where they’d be using the jackets). This information is then used to scans the inventory and find the perfect piece. It’s one (but telling) example of how AI is making deep inroads into the e-commerce (and retail) shopping.
Also, chatbots and visual search are making online shopping easier too. Apart from getting any queries, chatbots are also being used to make product recommendations and personalise your shopping experience by using AI to understand the user behaviour.
Also, to make searches easier, e-Commerce now uses AI-based visual search technology where real-world images are used for online searches, which then come up with the most relevant results. Here’s an example. Say you’re looking to buy an outfit work by someone, but just can’t describe it in the right keywords. Here’s where visual search combined with indexed images can do the job. This feature alone has increased the level of engagement of customers with e-commerce platforms. AI, again, is able to index and search hundreds of products and get results quickly.