ChatGPT use has declined over the past few months, but AI isn’t going anywhere. Retailers are innovating with their own homegrown and acquired AI tools to scale listings, improve search, and enhance personalizations.
These professional uses for AI will increase. More than half (58.0%) of generative AI users are using the tech in professional settings right now, a figure that will jump to 70.6% by 2025, according to our forecast.
Here are five examples of how retailers and brands are tackling AI.
The Coca-Cola Co. used AI to invent a flavor
Coca-Cola used AI to create its Y3000 flavor earlier this month. The beverage giant hasn’t described how it tastes beyond saying it’s “from the future,” but the pixelated label that offers a “glimpse into the future world” built buzz.
Coca-Cola’s use of AI in a marketing stunt is a good example of something that doesn’t always work. Levi’s learned this lesson the hard way when it announced a plan to use AI to represent more diverse body types, which was interpreted by many as a substitution for hiring real-size diverse models. Consumers are open to AI in marketing, but they’re less keen on the tech when a real-word solution is available.
Amazon AI writes product descriptions, speeds up payments, and offers recommendations
Amazon launched a tool that uses generative AI to write product listings earlier this month. The tech is aimed at helping sellers put out listings at a greater and faster scale and with better optimization. Boosting the scale of quality listings is a key use case for generative AI, but sellers should be sure to double check listings for inaccuracies and off-brand language.
Amazon is also using generative AI to power its “just walk out” technology, which allows consumers to pay without waiting in line. Amazon’s cashierless tech has been somewhat slow to catch on because of how different it is from what consumers are used to, but that doesn’t mean it won’t, especially as it expands beyond Amazon Go stores.
Finally, Amazon’s AI-powered recommendations aren’t new, but they are an important example of leveraging AI to promote conversions and boost cart sizes.
Estée Lauder offers AI personalization
Estée Lauder and Google Cloud expanded their partnership last month, focusing its AI to monitor customer feedback in order to personalize its brand sites. Leveraging AI analytics in this way satisfies what Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian called “a shift to personalization” in the beauty industry.
AI-powered Instacart goes public
Instacart, which went public on Tuesday, has featured an AI search tool powered by ChatGPT for months. The tool will build a grocery list around nonspecific questions, like, “What’s a good summer meal I can prepare in under an hour?”
Instacart is an example of how even as casual use of ChatGPT declines, professional and retail use cases are still very much alive.
Top fashion retailers experiment with AI search
ChatGPT and Instacart aren’t the only companies leveraging AI search. Lily AI has made headlines for its functionality as an AI personal shopper for brands like Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, and Abercrombie & Fitch. The tech allows users to type colloquial phrases like “boho chic” into a search bar and get results that fit their description, which can be another way to power conversions.
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