AI or Artificial Intelligence is redefining businesses and industries all around the globe. And AI in retail is transforming the eCommerce space to deliver exceptional customer experience.
Artificial Intelligence, with its myriad of amazing applications, can serve as a boon for retail businesses to collect and analyze customer data.
AI offers retail businesses and eCommerce stores the ability to reduce operational and marketing costs.
AI in retail is also slated to offer a superior shopping experience to end consumers.
To further understand the role of AI in retail, we spoke with Ravi N. Raj, Chief Executive Officer, and Co-Founder at Passage AI.
As a platform that enables businesses to harness the power of AI-enabled conversational interfaces, Passage AI has secured $3 million in total funding and is headquartered in Mountain View, California.
Read On!
What excites you the most about the future of AI in retail?
AI is disrupting many industries, retail in particular.
During the last holiday season, AI accounted for nearly 40% of all eCommerce sales, most of them through personalized recommendations.
I am particularly excited by conversational AI and how it can improve the shopping experience and lower costs for retailers.
Retailers will likely pass on most of these cost savings to customers in the form of lower prices and more deals and offers.
Juniper Research estimates that by 2023, chatbot-based interactions will account for $112B in retail sales worldwide.
How is AI in retail relevant to small businesses wanting to grow big?
Small retailers who typically have a smaller product catalog can use AI-powered recommendations to inspire their shoppers to discover new products that fit their taste and needs.
These retailers, who sometimes may not be able to afford a large Customer Service staff can use conversational AI to respond to their customers frequently asked questions.
What AI-empowered changes can customers expect to see in their buying experience in the coming years?
Customers can expect to see robots helping them find products in a store.
They can expect drones to deliver packages more quickly, securely and cost-effectively.
Computer vision techniques will power a new and a better way to discover products, especially in a category like fashion.
Do you think conversational chatbots can take care of customer service conversations end-to-end?
AI in retail, today, is primarily powered by chatbots that can take care of a number of customer service conversations end-to-end.
For example, a chatbot can tell you what the return policy is for the item you bought, and it can send you a shipping label, which would increase customer delight.
But there will also be a number of customer service issues, especially those that are complex, require empathy and creativity, that will be handled by live agents.
When it comes to AI in retail, what should retailers keep in mind when integrating AI chatbots?
Retailers should make sure their AI-chatbot has very high accuracy when it comes to responding to their customers’ questions.
A bot with low accuracy can damage the retailer’s brand, lower customer retention, and loyalty.
But a bot which efficiently and accurately helps a customer can increase customer loyalty and drive more sales.
Who is an ideal customer for Passage AI?
In retail, a brand that wants to provide instant responses to a customer’s question would be an ideal customer for Passage AI.
A retailer that wants to use an AI-powered virtual shopping assistant or stylist that helps the customer find exactly the product they are looking for would also be a good customer for us.
