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Google Cloud has unveiled a suite of new generative AI products to revolutionize the retail sector. The announcements, made during the National Retailer Association’s annual conference in NYC, showcase Google’s aggressive approach to court-gen AI customers.
These tools aim to enhance online shopping experiences and streamline back-office operations for retailers.
Conversational Commerce Solution:
One of the key products is the Conversational Commerce Solution, empowering retailers to embed gen AI-powered agents on their websites and mobile apps.
These agents engage in natural language conversations with shoppers, offering personalized product suggestions based on individual preferences.
The solution utilizes sophisticated models, such as PaLM, allowing customization with retailers’ data.
Catalog and Content Enrichment Toolset:
Complementing Conversational Commerce Solution, Google Cloud introduces the Catalog and Content Enrichment toolset.
Leveraging gen AI models like PaLM and Imagen, this toolset automatically generates product descriptions, metadata, categorization suggestions, and more from a single product photo.
It also enables the creation of new product images from existing ones and uses product descriptions as the foundation for AI-generated product photos.
Addressing Concerns and Human-in-the-Loop Approach:
In response to potential concerns about the accuracy and trustworthiness of AI-generated content, Amy Eschliman, Managing Director of Retail at Google Cloud, emphasized continuous improvement and a “human-in-the-loop” approach.
She highlighted the importance of human review in workflows to ensure high quality, mitigate bias-related risks, and comply with regulatory standards and business policies.
Google introduces a retail-specific Distributed Cloud Edge device, a managed hardware kit to reduce IT costs and resource investments for retail gen AI applications.
This hardware, available in various configurations, is designed to operate seamlessly in different store environments, ensuring non-stop operations even when disconnected from the internet for short periods.
Retail Industry Readiness for Gen AI:
Despite recent challenges in AI implementations in the retail sector, Google cites a poll indicating that 81% of retail decision-makers feel an “urgency” to adopt gen AI in their businesses.
Additionally, 72% express readiness to deploy general AI technology in areas such as customer service automation, marketing support, product description generation, creative assistance, conversational commerce, and store associate knowledge and support.
