AI-Powered Customer Experience

Alongside the global digital commerce adoption, a shift in how consumers are discovering new products and services, connecting with brands and retailers and completing transactions has ushered in the need for more intelligent customer experiences. For businesses, the ability to integrate AI throughout the digital customer journey will be a differentiator going forward, as consumers come to expect an amplified level of personalized assistance across every channel, and within multiple interfaces (voice, chat, SMS, social.) 

Within the research and discovery stage, natural language processing, image recognition and visual search capabilities are creating more contextual search experiences, connecting consumers to more curated and accurate results. Meanwhile, the layering of AI and machine learning is allowing for greater personalization across product recommendations, pricing, and promotions, tailoring shopping experiences to each consumers’ profile, preferences and purchase behaviors. Across the digital commerce landscape, a greater need for trusted guidance has blended the role of associate and bot, as on-demand support requires 24/7 availability and intelligence-backed service agents allow customers to feel known and supported no matter the channel of interaction. And as future state commerce experiences become reality, retailers and brands are designing synthetic sales associates to act as metaverse brand guides, and programming bots to provide concierge services, from sourcing products, to completing purchases on consumers behalf. 

Within this report, PSFK has identified six trends that showcase how leading brands and retailers are using AI to leverage shopper data. Specifically, we explore understanding in-the-moment preferences to suggest the right product at the best price, surface customer information and relevant details for sales agents in real time, and power individually-informed recommendations through voice, chat and text-based on-demand support. As the role of AI evolves from offering back-end solutions to providing consumer-facing value, the ability for retailers to deliver the optimized digital shopping experience consumers now expect will depend on their application of intelligence-supported shopping journeys.