Carrefour, the French multinational retail corporation, has taken a significant step in advancing its digital strategy by deploying three novel tech solutions, all powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 technology. These innovations include an advice-giving chatbot named ‘Hopla’, interactive product descriptions, and support for purchasing procedures.
A Personal Shopping Assistant: Meet Hopla
As of 8 June, shoppers on the Carrefour.fr platform have been able to converse with Hopla, a cutting-edge AI chatbot built upon the ChatGPT technology. Positioned on the homepage, Hopla assists customers in their shopping endeavours, advising on products tailored to their specific budget, dietary needs, and culinary ideas.
In a bid to champion sustainable consumption, Hopla also provides anti-waste solutions, suggesting practical ways of reusing ingredients and crafting associated recipes. It achieves this by connecting with the site’s search engine, offering product suggestions directly linked to the user’s ongoing conversation, thereby simplifying the overall shopping experience.
Product Information, Enriched with AI
Beyond Hopla, Carrefour has employed generative AI to enhance the informational content of over 2,000 product descriptions on its platform. This tech solution harnesses the capabilities of OpenAI to offer richer details about Carrefour’s branded products. The company plans to extend this technology across all its product descriptions, augmenting the depth and accessibility of information available to customers.
Streamlining Internal Operations with AI
Carrefour has also integrated generative AI into its internal purchasing procedures, assisting teams from the non-retail purchasing division with tasks such as drafting invitations to tender and analysing quotes. This initiative is currently in development, promising to significantly enhance the efficiency and efficacy of the company’s operational processes.
The rollout of these solutions stems from Carrefour’s collaboration with Bain & Company and Microsoft, partners of OpenAI. They have accessed OpenAI’s GPT-4 technology via Microsoft’s OpenAI Azure service, which also ensures robust data security, reliability, and confidentiality, in line with GDPR.
Alexandre Bompard, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Carrefour Group, expressed his excitement about the developments. “Thanks to our digital and data culture, we have already turned a corner when it comes to artificial intelligence. Generative AI will enable us to enrich the customer experience and profoundly transform our working methods. Integrating OpenAI technologies into what we do is an amazing opportunity for Carrefour. By pioneering the use of generative AI, we want to be one step ahead and invent the retail of tomorrow.”
As Carrefour pioneers the use of generative AI in the retail sector, it sets a significant precedent for the industry. This transformative move paves the way for an increasingly personalised and efficient shopping experience, elevating the standard for digital retail innovation.
Categories: artificial intelligence, digital transformation, Food, sustainability, tecgnology
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