Ever since the Turing Test was devised, there has been some interest in understanding if AI could hold a conversation like a human could. In recent years, there have been instances where AI posing as a person, convinces strangers over five-minute conversations. Conversational commerce is catching up fast, with IBM Watson getting into the lead.
1-800-Flowers.com is working along with IBM Watson to create Gwyn. Gwyn, abbreviated as Gift When You Need, is the first concierge service targeted towards customers looking to buy flowers on the site. This is not a chatbot, but an artificial intelligence software which uses previously available data to customise ideas and conversations for people.
People love informational conversations
Gwyn is not another chat box but is powered through AI. It thus learns about customer behavior on the go. This means that no two conversations held through Gwyn are the same. This gives a more personal experience for the buyer, unlike the existing chat box technology.
Gwyn's beta version was launched in May 2016, and from the trial run, it could be seen that people were willing to spend some time chatting on the platform. As long as there was a meaningful conversation, people were likely to spend more than two minutes asking questions. This according to the programmers, is encouraging to the future of Gwyn.
Sales conversion through keyword prompts
The visual interface of Gwyn has been modelled after Whatsapp, to enable scrolling options to previous messages by the buyer. An additional feature of keyword prompting has been added to the system so that it is easier for the buyer to choose between products. Keywords might include product suggestions, colors, and types, which necessarily expedite the product selection process.
Based on these conversations, Gwyn has the ability to understand the buyer's preferences, biases and choices. This can help it to give better suggestions when the user returns to the platform the next time. Also since Gwyn is brand agnostic, it allows for buyers to purchase from outside the intended domain. This thereby improves sales as well, since people buy more than what they came to the site for.
People are nice to conversational AI
One of the pleasant revelations to come out of Gwyn is that people are always friendly and polite while responding to it. This could be put down to the fact that the service resembles a messaging chat service, which gives it a human touch to the conversation.
The possibilities of use cases for services like Gwyn are limitless. Kia, the automotive giant, launched Nirobot, similar to Gwyn but works on Facebook Messenger. The venture is a part of Kia's growing interests in creating automated interactive platforms to assist prospective clients with their questions and also to give detailed information about their services. Hopefully, with the commercialization of this technology, we can see more of AI-powered chatting platforms in the near future.
Original article: AI powers conversational commerce at AI Info for Companies / Machian Future
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