Carrefour has set an e-commerce GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) target of €10 billion by 2026. Artificial intelligence should help the retailer achieve its ambitions in this sector.
The brand uses NLP in particular to improve its product recommendations. But now, it is also experimenting with the contribution of generative AI. Carrefour announces three first use cases, including two on its carrefour.fr site.
Hopla, an assistant for shopping
So far, chatbots have shown their limits. By relying on ChatGPT, the retail company hopes to do better. To do this, since June 8, it has integrated the conversational robot Hopla into its site.
The principle, via natural language, is to provide an assistant to customers in order to “facilitate their daily shopping. The purchasing assistant can, for example, “compose baskets of products according to a desired budget, dietary constraints, or menu ideas. »
“The robot also incorporates anti-waste solutions to reuse ingredients and create associated recipes and baskets. The robot is connected with the site’s search engine, and offers customers lists of products corresponding to the discussion, right up to the act of purchase,” explains Carrefour.
2000 product sheets created with AI
Second use case deployed on e-commerce: the generation of product sheets. Like Undiz, for example, the distributor entrusts generative AI with the enrichment and creation of product descriptions.
The group specifies that 2000 sheets have been put online. Was the creative process totally autonomous? Carrefour emphasizes that the sheets are the result of “working with OpenAI technology to describe the products and give more information to customers. »
The results seem satisfactory since the brand has already announced its ambition, in the long term, to use generative AI for all of its product sheets. Finally, Carrefour is experimenting with a third, more specific use case.
GPT-4 to help non-merchant purchases
The use of AI this time relates to its internal purchasing processes. The application is still under development. It is intended for teams in the Non-Market Purchasing department. Generative AI must “support them in their daily tasks. »
Carrefour intends AI in particular to help with the drafting of calls for tenders as well as the analysis of quotes. For the design of these first three use cases, the brand uses GPT-4 via Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service.
“Generative AI will allow us to enrich our customers’ experience and profoundly transform our working methods,” Group CEO Alexandre Bompard is now anticipating. By being a pioneer in the use of generative AI, we want to get ahead and invent the commerce of tomorrow. »