Interview with Purva Gupta, Co-Founder and CEO of Lily AI
AI Transforms Retail Shopping Experiences
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the retail industry, enhancing convenience, personalization, and operational efficiency in both in-store and online shopping.
Lily AI, a leading AI company, is making waves in the retail sector with its AI-powered demand forecasting solution. This technology helps retailers accurately forecast demand for brand-new product lines, eliminating the guesswork that often leads to incorrect inventory and missed sales opportunities.
The key to this success lies in Lily AI's core layer of customer language and an expanded taxonomy of product attributes. Without this, retailers and brands are still making bad guesses about products and inventory, leading to poorly served customers receiving irrelevant results or no results at all in the online shopping experience.
AI-powered demand forecasting can result in significant financial benefits for retailers. For instance, one multi-brand retailer projected a $48 million increase in topline revenue due to the implementation of this technology. Moreover, it helps retailers get ahead of supply chain orders and sell more products at full margin.
Lily AI's solutions for demand forecasting also help retailers make decisions on what merchandise to order earlier, ensuring the right size, color, and style mix of items will still be ordered ahead of longer lead times. This predictive power allows retailers to stock shelves with products that were popular in the past, based on specific attributes like "floral print black dress with lace."
In-store, AI is improving the shopping experience in several ways. Smart checkout systems, such as Amazon Go's "Just Walk Out" technology, use computer vision and sensors to enable frictionless checkout experiences. Store layout optimization leverages AI to analyze customer traffic patterns, sales trends, and product demand to arrange merchandise for better navigability and sales performance.
Loss prevention and security benefit from AI-driven computer vision and behavioral analytics, which detect suspicious behaviors in real time to reduce theft and protect inventory. Personalized product recommendations informed by AI agents analyze shopper behavior both online and in-store to suggest items tailored to individual preferences.
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) applications enable virtual product trials and interactive experiences, aiding customers in visualizing and engaging with products before buying, which enhances satisfaction and reduces purchase hesitation.
AI also helps retailers adapt quickly to changing demands, predicting trends based on real-time data (such as weather-related demand for emergency supplies), allowing stores to stock and display relevant items proactively.
Together, these AI-powered innovations contribute to a smoother, faster, safer, and more personalized in-store shopping experience, aligning retail operations with modern customer expectations for convenience and customization.
Key benefits of AI applications in retail include:
- Smart Checkout Systems: Enables quick, line-free checkout reducing wait times
- Store Layout Optimization: Enhances product placement for easy navigation and sales
- Loss Prevention Systems: Detects theft attempts in real time to improve security
- Personalized Product Recommenders: Offers tailored shopping suggestions enhancing engagement
- AR/VR Technologies: Provides interactive, virtual product trials
- Demand Prediction: Ensures relevant stock based on trends and seasonal needs
These applications underscore AI's transformative impact on creating a seamless, efficient, and customer-centric in-store experience in retail. Lily AI, with its innovative demand forecasting solutions, is driving eight- to nine-figure revenue uplift for retailers and brands like The Gap, Bloomingdale's, Macy's, and thredUP. The company was founded in 2015 with the vision of building a shopping experience that understands the emotional context of shoppers.
Retailers can even replace wholesale pre-orders with a leaner, demand-led, made-to-order model using AI. This approach can help launch lines that can be sold at full margin, rather than discounted later. Purva Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Lily AI, identified the issue of fashion retail's inability to understand detailed descriptions used by shoppers in real life. AI-powered demand forecasting can help retailers meaningfully break through the average 2.5 percent conversion rate from online search.
In conclusion, AI is playing a pivotal role in optimizing both the in-store and online shopping experiences, with a focus on accurately connecting retailers and shoppers through an expanded taxonomy of product attributes. The future of AI in retail involves a seamless integration of these technologies, creating a shopping experience that is not only efficient but also personalized and enjoyable for customers.
[1] AI in Retail: Trends and Opportunities [2] The Future of Retail: How AI and Machine Learning are Revolutionizing the Industry [3] The Impact of AI on Retail: Enhancing Customer Experience and Boosting Sales [4] How AI is Changing Retail
- The transformative power of AI in retail extends beyond demand forecasting, also affecting in-store experiences through smart checkout systems, store layout optimization, loss prevention systems, personalized product recommendations, AR/VR technologies, and demand prediction, contribution to a more efficient, personalized, and enjoyable shopping experience.
- In order to enhance the shopping experience further, retailers are exploring the possibilities of integrating AI, automation, and data analysis to replace traditional wholesale pre-orders with a leaner, demand-led, made-to-order model, aiding in launching lines at full margin rather than discounted later.
- AI and artificial-intelligence technology hold immense potential for retail innovation, as they provide a means to understand the intricate needs of customers through analysis of their language and product preferences, consequently boosting sales and aligning retail operations with modern customer expectations for convenience and customization.
