Artificial intelligence provides a quicker, engaging and seamless experience in increasing operational efficiencies thereby leading to the transmutation of businesses across industries.  A source from Statista. com says AI will grow into a $118.6 billion industry by 2025.

Evolving AI not only includes search, facial/ voice recognition but also self-driving cars and chatbots.  Chatbots are computer programs that conduct a conversation with a human. Companies like Amazon, eBay; Sephora are already deriving a greater ROI from AI technologies.

 Some interesting facts of Artificial Intelligence from allied market research.com are:

• 55.6% is the forecasted compound annual growth rate of the AI market.

• Asia Pacific is expected to hold the largest AI market share.

• Manufacturing is expected to experience the highest AI growth.

• The scarcity of AI experts is seen to be a major obstacle to the AI market’s growth.

AI in eCommerce Industry

eCommerce sector is experiencing a major impact with AI with data showing that of all the industries, eCommerce is the one most ripe for AI investment. AI has been modeled to understand the customer, learn from the experience, provide customer satisfaction and generate leads.

Conversational Artificial intelligence in eCommerce is used to improve and develop business growth with a greater ROI with technologies such as Machine learning, NLP and data mining. These work together to learn about the user and provide the relevant information on time. Recommendations based on customer searches and previous purchases are also provided eventually becoming their virtual assistant.

Some of the key features of AI in the eCommerce sector are:

Predictive sales: AI derives deep insights about the customer and helps develop the sales by predicting the customer purchase using current data. As per Forbes, “87 percent of current AI adopters said they were using or considering using AI for sales forecasting and for improving email marketing”.

Product recommendations: Just like how we ask for recommendations from friends/ family before buying a product and the salesperson at the store recommends the product based on our preferences, conversational AI makes this an online engagement with the help of a smart search. The recommendation engine analyzes customer behavior and provides all similar products with different versions.

Warehouse automation: AI automates the warehouse and distribution operations to achieve greater outcomes. Warehouse automation reduces the operating expenses and minimizes the manual process. A survey conducted for Zebra’s Warehouse Vision Report found that 59% of IT and operations personnel in manufacturing, retail, transportation, and wholesale market segments planned to expand process automation between 2017 and 2022.

Inventory Management: With AI, the demand forecast becomes more precise and allows to control of the supply chain with ease thereby saving time and cost.

Chatbots: Chatbots are computer programs that simulate human conversation through voice commands or text chats or both based on a set of a predefined algorithm. They respond to most of the rudimentary queries raised by customers, resolve their issues and infer customer preferences to create a customized shopping experience.

Conversational AI: Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, Google Assistant, and other voice-enabled applications have been contributing to a rapid spread of voice-driven user experience in the last few years.

Conversational AI is not only redefining the way people shop but also establishing deeper connections with customers resulting in better customer experience and higher engagement rates.  This results in higher retention, conversion rates and thereby revenue. Voice-enabled AI is impacting the emotional connect of the customers and in their decision-making process.

Voice-enabled AI enhances customer experiences, builds brand reputation and leads to higher revenue earning capability in the eCommerce sector.

Gartner foresees that by the year 2020, 30% of all web-browsing sessions will be managed without a screen.

Through conversational AI is still in the nascent stage, it is anticipated to grow manifold in the next 1 to 5 years thereby making a paradigm shift in the way we communicate with the world around us.

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