Wayfair is an ecommerce company using AI technology, including computer vision, to improve customer service. The home goods retailer, which had $6.7 billion in revenue last year, serves more than 15 million active customers.
“In categories like furniture and decor, it can be difficult to precisely describe an item in mind, especially in a way search engines can understand,” says Dan Wulin, Head of data science and ML, Wayfair. “So we built an AI-powered visual search tool.”
For example, Wayfair recently announced a “search with photo” function that uses smartphone photos to help users find products. The app, released in early November, includes an augmented reality tool that enables customers to preview of how furniture will look in their homes.
“Because our catalog is so big and there’s such a big variety of products, and our customers shop in such a visual way, we have to use AI in a different way to be successful,” he says.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are so important, Wulin says, that Wayfair has 2,300 engineers and data scientists working on applying AI techniques to business problems. One area they’re working on is using computer vision and natural language processing together to create new models that better mirror how the brain learns, he says.
You can read about various case stories on Digital Transformation on our blog: http://www.transformpartner.com/blog/
Comments