How Conversational Technology Impacts Businesses In The Retail Landscape

JULIA

Hello and welcome to The Vue Podcast: our podcast series on Leaders in Retail. I’m Julia Dietmar, the chief product officer at Vue.ai and your host for today. Today’s episode focuses on a topic that’s been trending for quite a while now - and that’s conversational technology. Most of us have heard about and experienced chatbots, Alexa, Google Home and waiting for a wider release of Google Duplex - Google’s newest human-sounding assistant. Brands and Retailers are exploring how conversational technology applies to their business and the ways it could positively affect their bottom line. From conversational marketing to conversational commerce and customer support, what are the most effective ways businesses can utilize chatbots and voice interfaces? To discuss this topic with us today, we have Ravi Raj, Co-Founder and CEO of Passage AI, a natural language understanding and processing platform that can be used to create deep conversational interfaces for any website or business. With over 20 years of experience in product development, Ravi has led teams at Yahoo, Kosmix, WalmartLabs and Bloomreach before he founded Passage AI.

JULIA

Ravi, thank you for joining us today.

JULIA

Ravi, how do you think conversational commerce has changed the way people shop?

RAVI

Frictionless way to shop and find the best product.

JULIA

You know, Ravi, there’s a lot to be said about conversational bots that are coming to take the human jobs vs making human jobs more efficient and productive. What’s your stance on that?

RAVI

By automating repetitive tasks, bots can make live agents more productive and add more value for the customer and the retailer.

JULIA

How do you see the future of AI-powered conversational interfaces? How do you think personalization and engagement with customers can evolve in Retail?

RAVI

Improvements in accuracy so bots understand what a customer is saying just like a live agent would. Bots will be smarter so they can understand the customer’s shopping behavior, likes & dislikes, price tolerance, etc. This will increase customer loyalty towards the retailer.

JULIA

A recent study talking about how adopting automation can save companies up to $165 billion by 2022, you know, .whether it’s in the retail, automotive, or manufacturing sector. Can you tell us in what way AI is applicable across sectors and industries?

RAVI

AI can help automate repetitive tasks that do not require human intuition or insights. Tasks that are being automated using AI include self-driving cars, drones that deliver packages with high accuracy, robots that pick products in a warehouse, computer vision technologies that help with visual search, similar to Vue.ai’s products. Even things like drug discovery and cure for diseases are all being aided and accelerated using AI.

JULIA

What’s in store for Passage.AI in 2019?

RAVI

We have new natural language processing or NLP technologies coming in 2019 that will help improve accuracy even higher. Our bots already perform at an industry leading accuracy of 95% now. We are launching new features like MRC and summarization so our responses can be more messaging and voice friendly. We will continue to make usability improvements to our bot building console so it become even easier to build and deploy a bot. Bots for most common use cases can be built and trained by simply entering information in a form. We already have integrations with a number of help desk and CRM systems like Zendesk, Salesforce, Oracle, etc , we want to integrate with even more.

JULIA

Have you seen any new patterns in the way retail brands are implementing the use of AI?

RAVI

Most of them are using it to provide automated customer service. Some are using it for conversational commerce where a virtual agent helps find the right product for you. Other applications of AI are computer vision, what Vue.ai does in terms of visual search. Again to help the customer find clothes they really like. Other applications are in the warehouse where already robots are picking and packing products. You will see them used even more there. And some companies have been experimenting with drones to speed up delivery and lower shipping costs.

JULIA

How was your experience working with Kohl’s. What improvements have they seen with using your bot?

RAVI

Kohl’s - automate customer service, help customer find the right product, allow store associates to get answers to commonly asked questions so they can serve the customers better.

JULIA

Thank you, Ravi. It was wonderful to discuss this fascinating topic with you. With MIT making a 1 billion dollar bet on AI education, and the future of retail being fuelled by AI, there’s a lot going on in this space...especially in fashion and luxury. Alibaba is installing hi-tech mirrors in women’s restrooms of all places so that Women can try on beauty products in front of virtual mirrors, while they wait in line for the bathroom. Earlier this year, Amazon secured a patent for a blended reality mirror, which could superimpose virtual clothing on your reflection. So, AI is slowly taking over retail. Stay tuned for more episodes of The Vue Podcast where we discuss these and other topics on fashion, technology and the future of retail. Until then, goodbye!