The Future of Retail: Exploring the Transformative Power of AI

In recent years, the use of artificial intelligence in the retail industry has become increasingly popular, with many big tech companies implementing the technology to enhance customer experiences and streamline operations. According to Yahoo Finance, the global AI retail market size is expected to reach $25.83 billion by 2028 from $5.19 billion in 2022.

Customer service stands out as the most prominent retail application for AI technology, with Amazon being one of the major investors in this domain. Amazon's Alexa Chat Bot is powered by a combination of natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), and automatic speech recognition (ASR) technologies. When a user types a request into the chatbot, the ASR technology converts the text into a digital format that can be analyzed by the NLP algorithms. The NLP algorithms then analyze the syntax, grammar, and context of the user's request to determine the most appropriate response. In the meantime, the ML component enables the system to learn and improve over time based on users’ interactions: The more users interact with the chatbot, the better it becomes at understanding their needs and providing accurate responses.

Also, Alexa's AI-powered shopping assistant uses a combination of algorithms and data analysis to provide customers with product recommendations. In addition to that, the chatbot can also handle other types of requests, such as answering questions, placing orders, and providing customer with 24/7 support, meaning that they can to shop whenever they want without needing human assistance.

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AI is also being used by e-commerce companies to improve search results and product categorization. Alibaba, one of the largest e-commerce platforms in the world, uses AI-powered image recognition technology to automatically categorize products based on their visual characteristics, and uses NLP to analyze product descriptions and categorize them based on the words and phrases used. This allows the platform to identify product attributes and features even if they are not explicitly listed. Additionally, Alibaba has launched a virtual assistant, AliGenie, which uses AI to help customers with their shopping experience providing them with more personalized recommendations which are tailored on user’s preferences.

According to Yahoo Finance, AI market size was valued at $95.60 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach $1,847.50 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 32.9% during that period. The use of AI in retail is becoming increasingly popular, and many big tech companies are developing new features to enhance customer experiences and streamline operations. Chatbots, virtual assistants, product recommendations, search optimization, and categorization are just some of the ways that AI is being used in ecommerce. As AI technology continues to evolve, we can expect even more innovative use cases to emerge, leading to improved customer experiences and increased efficiency in the ecommerce industry.

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The information in this article should not be regarded as a description of services provided by Delian Partners SA. The opinions expressed in this article are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security or investment product. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. The views reflected in this article are subject to change at any time without notice.

The Future of Business Process Outsourcing: RPA

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) refers to an innovative software – commonly known as a “bot”- used to execute repetitive tasks that are typical for white collar jobs, such as data entry, processing, and analysis, across multiple IT systems. Like traditional automation, RPA can help improve efficiency in almost every sector, helping execute tasks faster and at a lower cost.

Today, digital transformation is the number one priority for many organizations, which means RPA is one of the fastest-growing enterprise software applications within this trend. The AI powered technology allows machines to see, hear, and think as humans do, and to effectively solve both repetitive and complex task. Today more than $200B are spent on Business Process Outsourcing worldwide annually, and RPA has the potential to take a significant share of this spend as the market is rapidly shifting from outsourcing work to humans to outsourcing it to software bots.

According to Gartner, currently, UiPath is the leader in the RPA industry with its over 7000 enterprise customers. By combining Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning, UiPath’s RPA software allows organizations to automate processes which are then executed at a fraction of the cost and time previously spent. What makes UiPath unique is the use of software bots which accurately emulate human actions and automate millions of repetitive office tasks, increasing productivity and freeing up millions of working hours of capacity. UiPath is leading the “automation first” era worldwide by allowing business leaders to scale digital business operations at unprecedent speed.

Another big player in the RPA marketplace is WorkFusion, used mainly by banks and other financial players. WorkFusion allows these companies to automate, optimize, and manage repetitive operations via its AI-powered Intelligent Automation Cloud. The AI powered technology allows bots to read and understand complex documents containing unstructured data, and digitize, classify, make decisions, and extract data from them while minimizing fraud and data theft risks. Most importantly, the bots learn from each new document and activities previously executed, thereby continuously increasing, and improving their level of automation.

The RPA market is soaring from its market size of $250million in 2016 to $2.9billion in 2021, growing at a 63% 5-year CAGR. RPA can become a cornerstone in almost every industry: from finance, insurance, logistics to healthcare. As reported by McKinsey, 60% of all jobs could have at least 30% repetitive, tedious tasks that could be automatable. Automation could replace between 9 to 26% of such activities by 2030.

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The information in this article should not be regarded as a description of services provided by Delian Partners SA. The opinions expressed in this article are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security or investment product. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. The views reflected in this article are subject to change at any time without notice.

Social Commerce: A growth opportunity for Shopping

Social commerce is a part of the broader e-commerce ecosystem resulting from the combination of a 16.4% growth in social media usage year-over-year and the need for companies to reach customers wherever they are. In short, social media platforms today help businesses turning customers’ dependence on images and video into shopping activity, providing them with an immediate purchase experience.

Instagram and Facebook are leading the social commerce trend worldwide. Recently, Shopify partnered with the two platforms to connect more than 1million merchants with a potential daily customer base of 500 million and 1.9 billion users, respectively. As reported by eMarketer, in the US, 58% of Millennials said social media are an important source of information when making shopping decisions. Shopify’s customers can discover products while navigating on their favorite social network and interact directly with brands via messaging and Livestream shopping. After that,, they can complete orders by paying on the social platform through Shop Pay.

Pinterest also offers a visual interface that is ideal for social commerce, but unlike other platforms, 97% of the top searches on Pinterest are for unbranded goods. This unique marketplace is a great advantage for small and medium-sized businesses because their content can gain visibility based on the quality of their product and not by brand awareness. In addition, Pinterest’s most distinguishing feature is the use of Augmented Reality on its platform: When users see something in the real world, they can take a picture using the Pinterest camera and run a visual search for similar products. Or again, through an AR feature called "Try On", users can try on different makeup, save for later shopping, or buy through the retailer’s site.

According to Statista, Social Commerce is currently worth $89.4B, but it is expected to skyrocket to $600B in the next seven-year, as more people grow accustomed to buying online. With evolving technologies and the increasing use of smartphones, social networks are a key distribution channel for companies to both find new customers and boosting sales.

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The information in this article should not be regarded as a description of services provided by Delian Partners SA. The opinions expressed in this article are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security or investment product. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. The views reflected in this article are subject to change at any time without notice.