Ecommerce With AI

Artificial Intelligence and E-commerce

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a rapidly evolving technology that is currently at the forefront of innovation, and introducing new applications for many businesses. Artificial intelligence, as the name suggests is the technology behind artificially recreating human intelligence, by making software that understands repetitive human habits. These technologies offer businesses the potential to harness large datasets, improve business efficiency, and introduce new services to customers.

One such business that has been continuously innovating its service offerings with the latest groundbreaking technologies is E-commerce. E-commerce is a booming, constantly-transforming industry and artificial intelligence (AI) is constantly modifying the world of online shopping. AI has become a key part of the online shopping experience and a major influencer in how and why we make purchases. But what’s next in AI, and how will these developments impact the online retail industry?

AI in online retail

Online businesses are rapidly leveraging artificial intelligence to dramatically change the way they interact with customers. Chatbots are the latest “must-have” for E-commerce. A chatbot is a special software used to support a conversation (either verbal or in written form) with an actual person in a dialog box. Through chatbots, companies are able to provide instant, tailored, two-way conversations at scale – all through natural human language.

Many E-commerce businesses are already using chatbots to better communicate with their target audience, provide customer service, recommend products, and drive sales. 1800flowers.com, JustFab and Sephora are just a few examples of retailers engaging with customers through their own Facebook Messenger chatbots. On Sephora, you can get all kinds of makeup tutorials if you chat on Kik. Clothing brand H&M also makes good use of this by providing live fashion recommendations through its chat application.

How will AI change the future of E-commerce?

AI is becoming more and more sophisticated with each passing day. And E-commerce businesses are now able to harness that power to improve consumers’ shopping experience. There are endless possibilities when it comes to implementing artificial intelligence into online shopping and judging from the current advancements, AI is going to completely reshape the business of E-commerce. In the near future, AI will be able to:

  1. Decrease bounce rates & increase customer conversions by creating relevant onsite conversation. Responding to customer inquiries and providing product recommendations through interactions, using natural language.
  2. Improve shopping experience by changing the way consumers search for products. Especially in this digital era of Instagram and Snapchat, image search is a technology that has made life of consumers easy, as they can just upload a picture of any product they want and find similar ones online.
  3. Analyze customer behavior on their websites and use algorithms to predict what products may appeal to customers and provide recommendations.
  4. Accurately predict both real-time and future inventory needs for their business. Machine learning algorithms are being applied to data to help automate warehouse operations.

As online shopping becomes an even bigger part of our everyday lives, E-commerce specialists are turning to Artificial Intelligence (AI) for ways to increase conversion rates. As a rapidly developing technology, AI’s initial business applications have been adopted and developed by large businesses with the scale and capability to take full advantage. Looking at the current growth and wide acceptance, one thing is certain: AI will soon fundamentally transform the way online businesses function.

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