Tag: Artificial Intelligence

Seattle, Washington – In addition to its artificial intelligence and machine learning-powered tools, global travel platform Expedia has announced the beta launch of its new in-app travel planning experience powered by AI chatbot ChatGPT. 

With the new feature, Expedia members can now start an open-ended conversation in the Expedia app and get recommendations on places to go, where to stay, how to get around, and what to see and do based on the chat. 

The new trip planning experience also brings in intelligent shopping by automatically saving hotels discussed in the conversation to a “trip” in the app, helping members stay organised and making it easier for them to start choosing dates, checking availability, and adding on flights, cars or activities.

Prior to this, Expedia built a plugin for ChatGPT that lets travellers start a conversation directly on the ChatGPT site and select the Expedia plugin to bring a trip to life, but the conversational trip planning is now brought directly in the Expedia app.

“Every great trip can be made or lost while planning and shopping. As the leader in travel tech, Expedia continues to build out the core operating system for the industry, constantly enhancing capabilities and making trip planning faster, simpler and even more informative,” said Peter Kern, vice chairman and CEO of Expedia Group.

Kern also mentioned that by integrating ChatGPT into the Expedia app and combining it with its other AI-based shopping capabilities such as hotel comparison, price tracking for flights and trip collaboration tools, the platform can now offer travellers an even more intuitive way to build their ‘perfect trip’.

This collaboration with OpenAI is currently in the beta testing phase, allowing Expedia to evolve the experience based on its app users’ feedback and interaction.

The conversational trip planning beta experience is rolling out globally in the English language on the Expedia iOS app.

Australia – Promoting breaks for more than 65 years, popular chocolate brand KitKat has taken the opportunity to follow their own advice and let AI make their latest campaign so they could ‘have a break’.

Some appropriately generic briefs like ‘Write a KitKat ad the way Gen Z speaks’, ‘Write a KitKat ad about gamers’ and ‘Write a KitKat ad about the latest trends’ were used for the campaign. The generated scripts were used to prompt an image generator, resulting in some ‘almost ok’ images and AI voice.

João Braga, CCO at Wunderman Thompson, commented on the campaign, “AI is revolutionising our industry and beyond, but the reality is not every brand has something relevant (or fun) to say on that space.”

He added, “KitKat has breaks, and AI gives us more of those. So we thought we’d have a crack at it ourselves and poke a bit of fun at AI – while we can.”

Meanwhile, Nestlé’s Head of Marketing Confectionary, Melanie Chen, said, “We’re all for creating more opportunities to ‘have a break’, so when Wunderman Thompson asked us if we could let AI generate our next round of advertising content, we couldn’t pass it up.”

Chen, however, added that AI won’t replace jobs in the advertising industry any time soon without some real ‘watch-outs’.

The campaign is now live with 30’, 15’ and 6’ social and digital video, and 30’ audio and podcasts.

This follows KitKat’s interactive campaign on Instagram last year called the ‘Blink Break’, where consumers were encouraged to have a break and go head-to-head in an AI-powered staring contest.

Singapore – Cloud communications provider Vonage has announced an artificial intelligence (AI) acceleration suite to aid in the development of applications that deliver smarter solutions to drive business productivity and better experiences and engagements.

The new AI suite allows businesses and developers to deploy omnichannel customer journeys that use the power of AI and customer data to incorporate intelligence and automation into their customer experience applications.

For Vonage, the need for new and intelligent applications is accelerating as organisations look to enhance digital engagement for every stakeholder–which includes the customer, agent, and employee–to address each unique use case. They have also noted the rise of a new community of non-developers or so-called ‘citizen developers’, who are looking to create applications with real-time communications and seamless digital experiences.

Vonage’s suite solutions can be used together, flexibly in different combinations, or individually according to application needs. In addition, developers extend use cases and build specialised applications on top of other solutions with open access to Vonage communications APIs for voice, video, SMS and messaging.

Savinay Berry, EVP for product and engineering at Vonage, said that to meet evolving customer needs – and demand – for better ways to connect across channels of choice, enterprises today are looking for solutions that speed and simplify the development of intelligent, AI-powered customer experience applications.

“Vonage AI Acceleration Suite enables businesses to create better outcomes and enhance productivity with AI processing and programmable solutions that are essential for developers and non-developers alike to meet this growing demand for simpler and faster methods of application development to create a better overall customer journey,” Berry said.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Google Cloud has announced new artificial intelligence (AI) innovations dedicated to retailers to aid in their in-store shelf checking processes and enhance their e-commerce sites with natural online shopping experiences for consumers. It has also integrated its technologies with Accenture’s ai.RETAIL platform as part of its expanded strategic partnership.

The first on the list is Google Cloud’s new AI-powered shelf checking solution that can help retailers improve on-shelf product availability, provide better visibility into what their shelves actually look like, and help them understand where restocks are needed. 

Built on Google Cloud’s Vertex AI Vision and powered by two machine learning (ML) models—a product recognizer and tag recognizer—the shelf checking AI enables retailers to identify products of all types, at scale, based solely on the visual and text features of a product, and then translate that data into actionable insights.

The company has also announced a new AI-powered browse feature in its Discovery AI solutions for retailers. This capability uses ML to optimise the order of products (i.e., which products the shopper sees first) on a retailer’s e-commerce site once shoppers choose a category, such as ‘women’s jackets’ or ‘kitchenware’.

Other Google Cloud announcements include more personalised search and browsing results with machine learning (ML), and the ‘Recommendations AI’ solution uses ML to help retailers bring product recommendations to their shoppers.

Meanwhile, Accenture’s ai.RETAIL is an integrated solution that helps retailers better utilise data and AI to optimise common systems and programs, such as customer acquisition, pricing and promotions, assortment, and supply chains. Retailers can now deploy the ai.RETAIL platform on Google Cloud, meaning it is extended to Google Cloud’s trusted infrastructure and is integrated with multiple Google Cloud products and capabilities.

For Megawaty Khie, country director for Indonesia and Malaysia at Google Cloud, the upheavals in the past few years have reshaped the retail landscape and retailers are now seeking new ways to be more efficient, more compelling to shoppers, and less exposed to future shocks.

“The leaders of tomorrow will be those who address today’s most pressing in-store and online challenges with the newest AI tools. Our work with Accenture will also help local retailers quickly adopt integrated solutions that amplify the true benefits of AI, so that they can holistically understand their business across functional boundaries and continuously optimise their offerings and operations to thrive in a complex retail environment,” Khie said.

Sridhar Subramanian, managing director of Accenture’s Google Business Group in Asia Pacific, commented that with shifting consumer buying habits, now more than ever, retailers need to invest in building a digital core – which includes a solid data foundation, ML, and AI. 

“With the best of Accenture’s integrated ai.RETAIL platform and Google Cloud technology, companies can now access products and capabilities to help improve consumer engagement and conversions, and make their supply chains more sustainable,” Subramanian said.

Google Cloud and Accenture are also collaborating on a broad, new initiative to address complex challenges facing retailers today, including applying intelligence from ai.RETAIL to help businesses optimise their customer, workforce, and storefront experiences, and utilising other technologies and offerings from both companies.

Singapore – Global enterprise software company Sprinklr has announced a total of 120 new customer service and 25 new AI innovations for its multiple product suites to improve omnichannel customer experience (CX).

Sprinklr Service is a comprehensive, AI-powered contact centre as a service (CCaaS) platform that enables agents to serve customers across digital, social and voice channels seamlessly, delivering quick resolution of customer queries at lower cost of operations.

Some of the things the new features can do include predictive intelligence that analyses customer data, AI-powered quality management, complete commerce solutions for WhatsApp, amongst others.

Sprinklr’s digital-first approach, backed by a complete CCaaS offering and unified platform gives customers the confidence to make significant changes to their customer care infrastructure.

Pavitar Singh, chief technology officer at Sprinklr, said, “For more than a year, we have been working with leading organisations around the world to disrupt the traditional enterprise CCaaS market and deliver new service strategies for digital-first enterprises.”

He added, “With the ability to engage across 30+ channels, we empower customer service teams to seamlessly work across digital, social, and voice channels. Support from AI-self service tools helps brands deliver faster resolution of customer queries at reduced cost.”

Singapore – Global computer software company Adobe has announced a slew of generative artificial intelligence (AI) models to improve customer experience (CX) delivery for businesses, ranging from content personalisation and editing, to marketing copy generation and conversational experiences.

The new AI models will be part of Adobe Sensei’s collection of enterprise applications which enables customers to work and collaborate in new ways. Adobe Sensei is the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) arm for its Adobe Experience Platform.

A major AI model being announced is ‘Adobe Firefly’, a generative service which is trained on Adobe Stock images, openly licensed content and public domain content where copyright has expired, and will focus on images and text effects and is designed to generate content safe for commercial use.

“With Adobe Firefly, producing limitless variations of content and making changes, again and again — all on brand — will be quick and simple. In the future, marketers will be able to also train Adobe Firefly on the brand’s own collateral, generating content that reflects the brand’s style and design language,” the company said in a press statement.

David Wadhwani, president of digital media business at Adobe, said, “Generative AI is the next evolution of AI-driven creativity and productivity, transforming the conversation between creator and computer into something more natural, intuitive and powerful. With Firefly, Adobe will bring generative AI-powered ‘creative ingredients’ directly into customers’ workflows, increasing productivity and creative expression for all creators from high-end creative professionals to the long tail of the creator economy.”

Meanwhile, Adobe’s Sensei GenAI will enable brands to instantly generate and modify text-based experiences across any customer touchpoint and leverage different large language models (LLMs), including ChatGPT through the Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and FLAN-T5. The selection will align with the unique needs of each business, stemming from brand guidelines, product vocabulary and customer insights.

Some of the business uses for Sensei GenAI include marketing copy generation, dynamic automated chat, creation of rich audience segments which provide precision for personalisation campaigns, and caption generation.

Amit Ahuja, senior vice president for digital experience business at Adobe, commented, “Adobe has a long history of unlocking AI as a co-pilot for marketers, and we have a vision for generative AI that covers the full lifecycle of customer experience management, with the enterprise-grade security and data governance that our customers expect.”

He added, “Business growth is driven by customer experiences, and generative AI is a transformative, foundational technology that will impact every aspect of how brands connect with their customers.”

Tokyo, Japan – Japan’s leading telecommunications firm KDDI, in partnership with marketing communications agency Geometry Ogilvy Japan, creates a virtually produced film to showcase aU (Alpha–U), its new web3 metaverse platform brand.

In partnership with its parent company WPP, the agency crafts a 30-second clip which showcases four artistic illustrations made by GenZ artist Mayu Yukishita which were used as building blocks connected using AI midjourney and stable diffusion to generate interpolated animation of the platform brand.

The clip was also associated with visual effects to assemble the scenes, mixed with music and narration using japanese language.

Yasushi Arikawa, executive creative director of Geometry Ogilvy Japan, said that this AI-generated creative expression was inevitable for KDDI’s new brand αU that offers services that focus on Web3 and the metaverse.

“This film, in which AI and a virtual singer tell a story about the concept of “Already, one world” that blends the real and virtual worlds, takes us beyond the “uncanny valley” to an emotionally charged story,” Arikawa added.

Geometry Ogilvy supports all the creative direction for the new Alpha U collaboration, including all branding, communication design, events, and press conferences.

The launching was also done in partnership with Sydney-based production house Alt.vfx, and their subsidiary global creative studio T&DA, along with design agency New Holland Creative and THINKR.

Sydney, Australia – Performance marketing network Reprise Digital has launched its new ‘AIpril Fools Campaign Generator’, an ideation tool developed by the company to help get the creative juices flowing ahead of April Fools Day.

Powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the tool uses the latest in AI Large Language Models (LLM) technology to churn out witty campaign ideas. According to Reprise, the tool can inspire all marketing teams from any industry to create the ‘perfect’ April Fools campaign idea in a matter of seconds.

“Don’t be fooled by the AIpril Fools Campaign Generator, we don’t expect any Cannes Lion-winning ideas. This is more of a tongue-in-cheek creation highlighting the functionality of AI tools and how marketers should – and more to the point shouldn’t – be using them,” said Mychal Whittle, head of growth and integration at Reprise.

Whittle also added that the aim of the stunt is to show that companies still need people to drive creativity and salience for marketing campaigns, but there is a future world where they can combine both the human mind and AI to facilitate and deliver best-in-class creative ideas. 

Andrew Holford, chief product officer at Reprise added, “The buzz around AI facilitating marketers is huge, and we are already seeing some promising tools that can automate onerous work. Many of our products have AI [built-in] to deliver insights, content and data solutions at scale.”

Holford furthered, “However, there will continue to be a need for our people to bring the creativity and context to ensure clients get the bespoke and tailored strategies they need to succeed.”

“We aren’t expecting any of the campaign ideas generated by the tool to be turned in to real campaigns, we expect them to be relatively generic at this point but we’re pretty sure the tool will bring some fun to ideation ahead of April Fools Day,” Whittle concluded. 

The tool can be accessed via the AIpril Fools Campaign Generator’s dedicated website.

Singapore – A new global study from customer experience management platform Sprinklr notes that around 60% of brands struggle with ineffective AI for their customer service, with only 22% of the respondents reporting having a complete unified customer data to be leveraged for their customer service efforts.

According to the research, 62% of brands acknowledge the inconsistencies in their digital customer communication. This includes not being able to communicate the same information and unable to stay true to their brand voice. The majority of companies are also struggling with ineffective AI solutions (60%) and insufficient resourcing (54%).

Meanwhile, 11% of the respondents admitted that they make no effort whatsoever to personalise interactions. Another 36%, meanwhile, limit personalisation efforts to referencing ‘basic profile details’ in some or all communication. 

The remaining 53% of the respondents are making strides toward personalisation, but only 12% of them are predicting customer needs and proactively tailoring interactions based on specific needs, intentions, or sentiments.

The data also notes that many global brands also suffer from insufficient insights, with 51% of them finding it hard to even capture meaningful data about customers. Furthermore, 67% of companies face difficulty analysing customer data, 64% struggle to unify data, and 63% report challenges in using data to improve customer experience operations.

Lastly, the global research also stated that several leading companies are taking a number of actions to tackle these challenges, with 53% see AI being able to power chatbots and improve customer data as a paramount focus for 2023, and more than 69% planning to invest in technology that reduces agent effort.

For Ragy Thomas, founder and CEO at Sprinklr, providing digital, personalised service is essential for companies to meet consumer expectations, adding that making these interactions more cost efficient and easier for agents is equally as important.

“The challenges uncovered go beyond customer experience and contact centre teams. Insufficient intelligence hurts the entire business. Unified insight about what customers need and how they behave, can dramatically improve how every customer-facing function– from service, to sales and marketing, to product development operates. We’d like to help brands deliver the kind of customer experiences we all deserve,” Thomas said.

He added, “While challenges persist, it’s encouraging to see how many organisations are prioritising investing in the right technology to unify customer service operations and help make their customers and agents happier.” 

The research’s respondents were composed of more than 300 global leaders in the customer contact and customer experience spaces.

Singapore – Global public relations agency Golin has launched an AI incubator called ‘SPARK’ in order to help the agency conceptualise creative content using AI platforms. Said incubator is designed to diversify ideation, elevate storytelling, and mobilise content delivery for the agency across APAC.

Initiated by Golin’s Creative Intelligence Unit in Singapore, SPARK explores artificial intelligence platforms including ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Dall.E as a starting point for strategic planning and creative ideation.

The team is also working with custom artificial intelligence (AI) platform developers in Asia to explore the potential of this technology for the communications industry.

With prior experience harnessing AI for sentiment analysis and predictive analytics, the Creative Intelligence Unit’s newest initiative expands the role of AI technology across three core areas namely ideation diversification, storytelling elevation, and content delivery mobilisation.

The Creative Intelligence Unit is composed of data storytellers and creative technologists across Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore and Taipei that work closely with client teams and integrated media teams.

Shouvik Prasanna Mukherjee, who was appointed as chief creative officer for Asia-Pacific at Golin, and heads the agency’s Creative Intelligence Unit, said, “Artificial Intelligence is the latest tool that’ll frame the next chapter of our evolution and how we utilise it will define our future. When stones or ideas collide, there is a spark that ignites the drive for change. SPARK will shape our ‘future of work’ in creative intelligence that is both hi-tech and high-touch.”

Meanwhile, Darren Burns, president for Asia-Pacific at Golin, commented, “SPARK unlocks impact for us as an agency but also for our clients, people and the industry. Brands come to us wanting to create change that makes an impact, and that’s exactly what SPARK stands for – being on the front line of innovation around AI.”