The whole debate around technology making humans redundant gains a new dimension when you consider how technology enhances human efficiency and offers newer possibilities for human ingenuity.  In retail, traditionally a people centric industry, the role of technology 

is increasingly being explored across the value chain – from backend processes to front-end customer facing interface. In fact, today it is also being acknowledged that both the backend and the front-end need to be one seamless whole to achieve business growth.

This is the reason a whole industry is fast emerging, catering to different tech requirements in the retail value chain. For DaveAI, a 7 year old tech company that offers an AI powered sales experience platform to brands, physical retail was in fact the starting point. The company has now come a full circle – starting from the offline space, moving to the online/digital space, and back to the offline retail space now. 

As Ananthakrishnan Gopal, CTO, DaveAI, tells Retail4Growth in an exclusive interaction, while talking about the company’s genesis and journey, “Our first and primary focus was largely on physical retail and our first offering was a digital sales companion which would enable retail sales teams to track leads and gain insights on product movement. We began with the home décor category with presence in about 60 stores. Subsequently, given the scaling and other challenges we encountered, we began exploring other areas like the enterprise space and began working with larger customers. Also, with Covid hitting retail, stores were shut down. So the next version of our product focused on enabling brick and mortar retail move into the online space seamlessly. “

This shift was of course driven by obvious changes in customer behaviour wherein purchase decisions are often made online, before visiting the store, especially in categories like automobiles. So for DaveAI, the whole question was about how to offer an offline experience in the online space. 

As Ananth explains, creating an offline experience in the online space meant focusing on three aspects – the ambience, the product visibility and the sales person.  Accordingly, DaveAI worked around three pillars - visualisation of space, visualisation of products and creation of a sales avatar who understands customer requirements and accordingly nudges them towards purchase or the next step in the purchase journey. This product or platform, which facilitates interactive and virtual showroom, has gained a lot of popularity with a million people interacting with it every month, informs Ananth. The product also works on multiple channels – WhatsApp, Bot, Metaverse, VR, kiosk screen, etc.  

Evolving market, evolving product models 

DaveAI’s evolution as a platform was in step with the company’s own understanding of their retail customers’ pain points. Elaborating on this Ananth says, “One of the first pain points that retailers were facing was loss of data. They were unable to gain insights on customer walk-ins or on why they were walking out, and that is the challenge that we sought to address with our solution.  We then discovered their next pain point, which was the reduction in walk-ins. So then we developed an AI driven product that would help them create an online presence and drive walk-ins to the store by enabling visualisation and sales conversations.”

Having been an early mover and having gained more competitors in the space, the company obvious sees a growing market and newer opportunities waiting to be tapped. This is also one of the reasons the company has developed version 3 of its product which is Generative AI driven and which enables faster roll-out of interfaces that are in sync with product launches and also enable better visualisation of product. However, Ananth does concede that AI generated visuals are yet to match human-like accuracy and this is a critical factor for categories like retail and jewellery, where the human persona is an important factor in product visualisation. As Ananth points out, “The technology right now needs more maturity to match human quality. Current Gen AI capabilities do come close to human-like appeal but in terms of accuracy there is still a long way to go. So, in that sense, the technology is still in transition.” 

Go retail, Go AI

Meanwhile, for DaveAI, the next area of focus is very clear - in-store technology. As Ananth points out, most retailers and brands are realising today that if they are not spending on these front-end technologies, someone else – perhaps their competitor – surely is. So there’s that fear of missing out that has set in.  But then, wanting to have technology is one thing, and actually seeing the returns from it is another. So how do retailers measure their ROI from these technologies? Ananth answers, sharing how DaveAI pitched their product, “Everything we sold was ROI driven because we were able to generate data in terms of traffic and sales leads, and accordingly offer comparative analysis. This is the reason we have been to retain our customers and achieve scale.” 

As part of its focus on retail, DaveAI recently tied up with Intel, essentially to enable retailers have Gen AI capabilities within their stores in a cost-effective manner. As Ananth informs, “The use of Gen AI requires high processing capabilities with high-end hardware which can be prohibitive for retailers. So by partnering with Intel, we will be helping retailers benefit from Gen AI capability that is optimised for low-cost hardware, thus making it more accessible for them.” 

These initiatives are in fact driven by one of the most significant transformations in the retail space. As Ananth sums up, diving right into the core of it, “Brick and mortar stores are no longer spaces for discovery, as much of the product discovery happens online. Stores are today getting converted into experience centres and we want to see how technology can make a difference there – essentially look at bringing AI into retail at a lower cost. This is where we have significant investments and partnerships happening.”