In this Cognitive Business interview, we sit with Brian Mitchinson, Chief Marketing Officer at Fluid, an IBM Watson eCommerce partner who’s powering the future of the AI personal shopping experience.
Brian has a passion for people and machines working together. And he doesn’t think there is anything cooler than cognitive computing.
Cognitive computing changes how humans and machines communicate. Just think: when we go to Amazon and search for a camera, you get 500+ results; and you have no idea how to easily choose the right one for you. Now imagine: you talk to an AI personal shopping assistant, tell it you want a camera; the AI asks you questions around your purchase (like, “how are you going to use it”) and then the AI shows you a small selection of cameras that are optimized for your use. It’s like an in-store experience but better. - Brian Mitchinson
Where can I get the AI personal shopping experience?
Well, if you want to buy flowers you can chat with our AI shopping assistant Gwyn at 1-800-Flowers here.
And if you want to buy a jacket, you can chat with our AI shopping assistant XPS at North Face here.
They’re both Fluid - IBM Watson customers, if I’m not mistaken. How did the IBM relationship come about?
Yes, 1-800-Flowers and The North Face are customers.
Fluid and IBM have been eCommerce partners for a while. So, when Watson came to be, we were invited to become a partner to build retail applications of Watson. We gladly joined the IBM Watson partner team.
Tell me more about 1-800-Flowers AI use case.
1-800-Flowers is a unique company. They are super innovative and are great with interaction technologies. They are looking for the next thing that is going to make user experiences even better. 1-800-Flowers recognizes that the way businesses sell to customers is changing and they are doing something about it. 1-800-Flowers wants to make it easy to buy from them. What do you need? How big a statement do you want to do? They want to understand how people buy and help lead their customers to the most appropriate gift, instead of them wandering around and finding it themselves.
And what is the tech stack for the personal shopping experience AI?
We use the natural language classifier and the Question and Answer IBM Watson API. With the use of both, our AI can understand what people are asking for and deliver on their asks with product recommendations.
As a retail marketing leader, what’s your take on the present and future of AI?
Taking stock of the tech waves - email to social and social to mobile - I’d say it’s now time for the next tech wave: AI. It feels really relevant.
Technology is now more powerful and capable of building more sophisticated applications. We’re now at the point where it’s going to happen. We’re going to see a lot of companies test and grow, like 1-800-Flowers. I foresee that companies will evolve their traditional websites to natural language communication between their business and their consumers.
Businesses and consumers are evolving and it will explode. The next question is: where is it going to go? Personally, I believe that we’re going to go from websites to virtual reality experiences - where you can see and try on what you’re buying.
What challenges does AI face in retail?
The biggest challenge is: big change and time. From a retail business perspective: today’s shopping experience includes products that are categorized in drop-downs and presented in a certain way. The cognitive experience is way different. With cognitive, AI personal shopping assistants talk to customers, find out what you need and why and then provide you a selection.
From a consumer perspective: today, consumers go to shop and encounter long lists of products. In the future, consumers will enjoy the satisfaction of personalized shopping. For example, say you’re going to Whistler and need a jacket; your AI personal shopping assistant at North Face will know to ask about it. The AI will go further and ask what time of year you’ll be heading out, so that you get the right jacket for your trip. It will be quick and easy.
It will take time to get there but this is where we’re heading.
The companies that really understand customer needs will be best positioned to leverage the AI personal shopping experience. - Brian Mitchinson
What would you tell a business that’s thinking twice about adopting the AI personal shopping experience?
Users are changing. Mobile tech is rapidly changing the way we think about interacting with friends, family and the brands we love. This is a great opportunity to try to keep pace with that change.
You don’t want to be left behind and try to tackle the challenge after the fact. Brands should at the very minimum start testing tech.
Cognitive Business” is an interview series featuring prominent figures in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) world. Written by Lolita Taub and written for C-suite and Line-of-Business seeking to address business challenges and goals using the smartest tech.