Roy Steves

Co-Founder, StatBid

Everyone knows you can write content with ChatGPT, but did you know that a non-technical person can use it to implement solutions that would typically require a programmer? This means that a marketer could identify an interesting API, slap together a prototype on a cloud service (like Google Apps Scripts, in my case), and have a working prototype in no time. Now, imagine using ChatGPT in tandem with other tools, too. Just as your brain has different structures that work together, so too will AI subsystems add up to more than the sum of their parts.

Roy Steves, Co-Founder, StatBid

Anthony Presley

CEO, TimeForge Labor Management

ChatGPT and generative AI continue to push boundaries in retail. We have seen our customers utilize the tools to perform fast A/B testing of e-commerce ads, job descriptions for recruiting, and writing performance reviews. On the flip side, we've also seen applicants using these tools to write cover letters and better resumes that are targeting specific jobs. The space is evolving quickly and retail leaders will need to keep up with the technology.

Anthony Presley, CEO, TimeForge Labor Management

Dan Nicol

Media Director, Goodway Group

ChatGPT/Generative AI is benefiting all aspects of the business, from understanding user intent to back-end business operations. Retailers can use Generative AI to analyze customer feedback, which can help gauge public sentiment, improve customer service and allow retailers to become more “personal” with customers. Generative AI can also grow social audiences for retailers by producing more engaging and data-centric content at a faster pace. In addition to boosting audience growth, it can also improve efficiency by analyzing overall marketing strategies and recommending areas where incremental dollars would be best spent. Generative AI is disrupting supply chain management for retailers by analyzing demand data with inventory levels to integrate into pricing, allowing retailers to generate their supply/logistics strategies.

Instacart has launched a plugin with ChatGPT that interacts with users’ open-ended questions like, “what should I make for dinner?” and from there, customers can make lists within the app and schedule delivery. Walmart has also rolled out AI-powered tools that negotiate cost and purchasing terms with some of its vendors, while Zalando is adding its own ChatGPT-powered fashion assistant to help customers find products and use predictive analytics for inventory management. While there’s no doubt that ChatGPT/Generative AI is already transforming the industry, human supervision is critical to ensure the quality of AI, especially as we are just scratching the surface of what’s possible with this new and exciting technology.

Dan Nicol, Media Director, Goodway Group

Shannon Flanagan

ChatGPT’s ability to hold entire conversations on any subject with no additional training introduces a whole new level of sophistication to retail chatbots while also making them faster to deploy. Moreover, AI-powered chatbots can recall past conversations and leverage that information to provide more accurate, nuanced solutions for customer inquiries, helping to increase the overall customer experience by providing more timely, personalized support.

In terms of current use cases, Expedia’s new ChatGPT-powered travel planner is a compelling way to leverage generative AI. The chatbot can field customer questions, suggest plans, and tailor responses around previous exchanges with that customer. As the travel planner moves from the Beta to the open-sourced phase, it will be interesting to see data on how many users actually use AI to plan their trip, and whether consumers really trust an AI’s travel recommendations over their fellow humans.

Shannon Flanagan, VP - GM Retail, Talkdesk

Rob LoCascio

ChatGPT is just one example of how generative AI will change retail. For context, generative AI is a type of AI that generates outputs (like images or text) out of the patterns and styles found in existing data. ChatGPT is OpenAI’s generative AI-powered experience designed to use text to converse with humans in a natural and engaging way.

Right now, businesses of all kinds are scrambling to take advantage of generative AI, including but not limited to ChatGPT. However, these technologies are not fit for business use right out of the box, as they can go off the rails or even “hallucinate” outputs not grounded in reality. That said, with the right guardrails and trusted AI partner, any business can now achieve the long-awaited dream of automating truly human-like conversations on a massive scale.

Rob LoCascio, Founder and CEO, LivePerson 

Hilding Anderson

ChatGPT is expanding rapidly into the retail landscape. We are seeing specific use cases in engineering optimization, customer chat on-site, natural language search, sales associate support in-store, content creation (particularly for product details), and image creation and design. But it is still early days.

The biggest immediate opportunity is around engineering and product development, where we’re seeing major improvements in both speed and quality of development. We’re also seeing retailers invest in product content creation to provide better product descriptions – especially as marketplace solutions continue to grow. Additionally, we’re particularly excited about the supply chain opportunities to provide predictive solutions.

Hilding Anderson, VP, Publicis Sapient

Diarmuid Gill

Keep in mind that generative AI is unlike traditional models which identify patterns and make predictions, this kind of AI can also be used to create new stories and even new ideas. This could lead to unlikely partnerships between brands to make previously inconceivable products come to life (think along the lines of Peep-flavored Pepsi). Take the well-known Dall-E system, focused on creating images and visuals from textual prompts; our AI Lab has already explored the potential for this kind of AI to devise entirely new products based on user prompts. We’re not too far from a world where everything from ready meals to new crisp flavours are discovered through AI.

 Of course, any novel product concept needs to be rationalized against demand, and this is where commerce data comes in — to focus product recommendations on what millions of purchases are telling the business. We’re seeing an accelerating trend in advertising towards what we call ‘commerce media’, where campaigns across the open web are centered around this kind of transactional shopping data. ChatGPT will need to take a leaf from commerce media’s book to unlock its true potential.

Diarmuid Gill, Chief Technology Officer, Criteo

Sara Meza

Generative AI will transform the industry by automating routine tasks, enhancing data analysis, and improving decision-making, ultimately leading to increased productivity and better customer experiences. We’ve implemented novel use cases that incorporate generative AI for our omnichannel customers to expedite product onboarding, automatically tag and enrich product data, generate persuasive product descriptions that are optimized for conversions, analyze customer product reviews, and more.

Sara Meza, SVP, Chief Digital Officer, Digital Wave Technology

Udayan Bose

It is unlikely that ChatGPT will replace search engines entirely as it only shares one answer. However, its innovation will force SERPs to go through a massive update. In fact, we could see ChatGPT create a brand new conversation funnel alongside the traditional search funnel. In a post-ChatGPT landscape, traffic is shifting to Bing. With this shift in traffic, it is worth testing a 15-20% incremental budget on Bing to judge how Bing customers compare to Google: is there an impact on performance?

Udayan Bose, CEO & Founder, NetElixir

Dave Hamilton

ChatGPT has been deployed by retailers in a number of cool ways, including:

• Personalized Product Recommendations: ChatGPT can be used to analyze customer data and preferences to generate personalized product recommendations. This can help retailers to increase sales and improve customer satisfaction.
  
  
• Enhanced Customer Service: ChatGPT can be used to create chatbots that can answer customer questions and resolve issues quickly and efficiently. This can free up human customer service representatives to focus on more complex tasks.
  
  
• Improved Product Discovery: ChatGPT can be used to create interactive product catalogs that allow customers to explore products and learn more about them. This can help customers to find the products they are looking for more easily.
  
  
• Increased Engagement: ChatGPT can be used to create engaging content that will keep customers coming back for more. This can be done using chatbots, interactive product catalogs, and other forms of content.
  
  
• Improved Marketing: ChatGPT can be used to create targeted marketing campaigns that are more likely to resonate with customers. This can be done by analyzing customer data and preferences to create personalized messages.

As the technology continues to develop, we can expect to see even more innovative and creative ways in which ChatGPT is used to improve the retail experience.

Dave Hamilton, Senior Director, Blue Yonder