Over the last 18 months, since the public launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, few technologies have received as much focus and hype as Generative AI.
Data from CB Insights shows the striking increase of equity funding into Generative AI businesses, up 413% from 2022 to 2023, coming at a time when total equity funding declined by 43%.
Shoptalk has been tracking and showcasing use cases and examples of Generative AI in retail, and has identified three core groupings: improve productivity and efficiency; elevate the shopper experience; and enhance creativity.
What has been noticeable is the focus of many retailers on internal processes and tools, ahead of external customer-facing services. This includes setting the governance, guardrails and policies to protect employees, customers and their data.
Alongside this, retailers have been seeking to create cultures of experimentation to help teams understand the potential of this new technology – safe 'playgrounds' – to ensure ownership sits across the business rather than siloed within technology teams.
The outputs of such work are starting to emerge. For example, Deliveroo recently developed an in-house substitution model based on Generative AI, utilising large language models to understand decision hierarchies and bring the tool to market in record time.
Potential Of Generative AI
Generative AI has the potential to unlock personalisation in grocery e-commerce, from better-tailored recommendations to dynamic pricing and tailored promotions.
Initially, much work has focused on native language search, though with limited cut-through to date. In the short term, retailers remain more focused on internal efficiency savings, and here the potential is vast.
Leading retailers and CPGs have been invited to share their latest generative AI use cases and results at the forthcoming Groceryshop event, taking place from 7-9 October in Las Vegas. For more information, click here.
Book your tickets here before prices increase at midnight PST on Friday, 23 August 2024.
This article was written in partnership with Shoptalk.
