Regulators and advocacy groups have also voiced opposition. For example, during a speech at The Brookings Institution last December, Microsoft president Brad Smith said, “If we fail to think these things through, we run the risk that we’re going to suddenly find ourselves in the year 2024 and our lives are going to look a little too much like they came out of the book ‘1984.’”
Many recommendation engines rely on patterns of consumer behavior — which are not very useful for new products that have no browsing or purchase histories.
That’s the view of Carl Theobald, CEO of shopping personalization platform RichRelevance, which announced Monday enhancements that are designed to overcome this “cold start” problem on retailers’ sites.
RichRelevance, the global leader in Experience Personalization, today announced accelerated momentum for the company’s AI-driven personalization with over $35 billion in digital sales delivered to B2B and B2C leaders to date.
“RichRelevance is seeing incredible business momentum, capped with nearly 300% growth in AI-driven search personalization with our FIND product and our 9th consecutive year of 100% uptime over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping weekend,” said Carl Theobald, CEO of RichRelevance. “We’re continuing to invest heavily in pragmatic AI technology that delivers and helps keep our clients ahead of the pack.”
Retail is undergoing a technological transformation that is driving retailers to automate redundant tasks and revamp their mobile strategies.
According to Gartner, worldwide retail tech spending will increase 3.6% to $203.6 billion in 2019.
Retailers are investing more in technology at a time when many firms are growing their mobile operations. In a study published in September by VoucherCodes and WBR Insights, 75% of senior retail executives from the UK and France said they plan to invest heavily in developing mobile apps, coupons and payments.
Insight has used the RichRelevance-driven recommendations on its website, including on landing pages tied to email or search marketing campaigns.
Over the past year, Werve says, Insight has seen a more than 63.6% increase in the clickthrough rate for product recommendations—and a 3.5% increase in sales from product recommendations.
Sometimes, technology can even be detrimental: A survey by RichRelevance shows that seven out of 10 shoppers say the use of artificial intelligence to choose and order products on their behalf is “creepy.” Only 14 percent found it “cool.” Also, a majority of shoppers prefer human cashiers to self-checkout kiosks, according to analysis provider eMarketer.
In June 2018, Qwerkity, the online specialist in quirky and unusual gifts, was acquired by The Book People, a long-term partner of RichRelevance. Having worked successfully with RichRelevance since 2012, The Book People was keen to implement RichRelevance into Qwerkity to ensure a consistent approach to online personalisation.
Working with ecommerce implementation partner Paraspar to bring the project live as quickly as possible, the impact of RichRelevance’s personalised product recommendation platform was swift.