Generative AI in Retail Series

Verneek

Mar 22, 2023

The friction in shopping brick-and-mortar retail has never been greater. Let’s look at grocery retail, where food inflation, food allergies or sensitivities, special diets, confusing information on nutrition and wellness, product assortment proliferation, and ever-changing store formats create conflicting constraints for the weekly shopping journey. Voice-driven Shopping AIs aid the time-crunched customer by quickly navigating the following multiple constraints to make faster and smarter decisions, bringing an intelligent digital layer to physical experiences.  

Different Competing Needs within the Household

It is not unusual for several household members to be on special diets, have allergies, or have unique perspectives on their food. Finding the overlap in these diets for meal planning and creating a shopping list can be daunting. Shopping AIs can seamlessly decipher ingredients and critical attributes on hundreds of thousands of food items and can quickly find a recipe or product that meets everyone's needs. Just ask "Do you carry any sugar-free, gluten-free, vegan salsa that does not have cilantro in it?"

Health and Wellness Requirements

Navigating the confusion around nutrition while keeping meals fun and exciting is a constant challenge. In this post covid era, shoppers are more aware of the linkage between healthy eating and wellness. Obesity, Diabetes, and Heart disease are common issues within families. These issues often require the meals and snacks to have guard rails around sugar, carbs, and fats and more emphasis on meals made up of vegetables, fiber, and lean protein. The significant trade-off for many people is a compromise in taste. Some creative recipes and products are healthier and taste great, but finding them can be very time-consuming. Shopping AIs can instantaneously comb through thousands of research articles, recipes, product ingredients, ratings, recommendations, and beyond. That way, Shopping AIs quickly provide meal and product recommendations that easily balance wellness and taste at the same time! 

"What are your top-rated healthy kids' snacks?"

 "What dessert do you recommend me to buy for a keto diet?"

Budget Constraints

For many, the most challenging constraint is living within the weekly grocery budget in the face of constant price increases. People are looking for deals and cost savings but still have many constraints, as mentioned earlier, with quality and freshness as added concerns. Shopping AIs are powered by up-to-date pricing and daily promotions and can help shoppers meet any of their budgetary needs.

"What is a recommended healthy beef stew recipe that costs under $30?"

"Where can I find organic meat that is on sale today?"

Time Crunch

Years ago, the busiest shopping days were midweek, but with dual incomes and busy schedules, the heavy foot traffic times now are the weekends. For all the constraints mentioned, time can be the trickiest. Feeding a family with all these conflicting constraints can be very time consuming to do well, and many shoppers leave stores with an incomplete list because of the time. The real strength and value to customers are that Shopping AIs allow shoppers to make faster and smarter decisions while addressing all these food issues. Navigating these stores to find all the items on this list can also take time. Shopping AIs not only drastically shorten the time it takes for research and discovery, from minutes to seconds, but also help map efficient routes through the store. 

Similar to the story of the frog in the pot that doesn't notice as the water slowly moves from cold to hot,  the friction and heavy burden of brick-and-mortar shopping did not happen overnight but took decades to evolve. As more people use Shopping AIs, these technologies will adapt and improve to make the process even easier for shoppers.

Quin is the only such Shopping AI out there and a pioneer in bringing this future to retail today, however, we believe this is just the beginning!

Voice-enabled multilingual AIs provide frictionless seamless experiences to a broad consumer base, helping them navigate conflicting constraints and delighting them by being their one trusted source of information!

We are looking forward to hearing your perspectives and comments.

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