Head of Digital: How to Work With AI in 2024

• Retail brands need to work with AI in 2024 in order to stay competitive within an industry that’s projected to widely invest in this technology.
• Retail AI unlocks huge growth potential, as it enhances product discoverability, site personalization, marketing functions, process speed, and more.
• There are several everyday operations that Lily AI improves for retailers’ digital teams, ultimately enhancing customer experiences and improving bottom lines. 

While AI boomed in 2023, it’s on pace to be an essential, widely adopted technology this year. It will be particularly indispensable in the retail sector. This is because the retail industry is spending the second-most on AI, just behind banking . . . And with good reason! 64% of people say they want to shop with companies that can meet their needs in real time. Through connecting retailers and customers via language, AI does exactly that.

Within the retail space, e-commerce professionals will work with AI across several aspects of their daily routines, from efforts to personalize shopping experiences and boost overall website engagement to activities that drive conversion and incremental purchases. You can get the full scoop on these process enhancements in the 2024 Retail Roadmap.

Let’s take a look at how AI will impact work across teams that report to the Head of Digital. If you lead these teams, finding the right AI solution will help your team members grow your e-commerce business, while ensuring results-driven and personalized onsite experiences for your customers at every stage of their journey. 

Under your leadership, your teams’ AI implementation will focus on boosting:

• Process efficiencies
• User experiences
• Site optimization
• Product merchandising
• Marketing functions, like SEO and Google Ads

Now let’s take a look at how these functions and others will be enhanced with the inclusion of AI in your tech stack. We’ll compare AI-enhanced workflows and workflows without AI, so you can see the real impact this technology makes.

Product Attributions With AI vs. Without AI

• With AI . . .You can very quickly attribute hundreds of descriptive tags to your products, using customer-centric language that’s both searchable and relevant.
• AI’s advantages:
  • Product onboarding is faster and more detailed.
  • Individual products will include up-to-the-moment trend language and a multitude of synonyms from Lily’s bespoke product taxonomy consisting of 20k+ customer-centric attributes.
  • Product descriptions will contain up to 10x more attributes that are more accurate, consistent, and error-free, thanks to AI-powered image recognition and Lily AI’s specialized LLM.
• Final impact: People will be able to pin-point the products they’re looking for, thanks to enhanced discoverability by way of customer-centric language.

• Without AI . . . Employees need to manually input product attributes, item by item, using the language of your team of specialized retail professionals, rather than customer oriented language.
• Missed opportunities:
  • Manually drafting and entering product data leads to potential inaccuracies and fewer details.
  • Products feature retail industry language, not the language customers are using when they shop.
• Final impact: Your product listings aren’t optimized for discoverability.

Product Discoverability With AI vs. Without AI

• With AI . . . Product attributions are richer, including of-the-moment trends and a multitude of tags that connect customers to your products.
• AI’s advantages:
  • Product attribution data for your inventory will have greater depth, including both retailer and customer-specific language.
  • In-depth product attributes are indexable by search engines and more searchable on your site.
• Final impact: AI will instantly unlock better on-site search and product recommendations. Your products are also optimized for Google Search.

• Without AI . . . Item set-up processes aren’t as efficient or detailed. Sponsored ads and product listing setups may be ignored or arduous.
• Missed opportunities:
  • Product attributes don’t align with what shoppers are looking for and fail to connect them to your assortment.
  • Setting up products for search engines may involve various teams or departments. 
• Final impact: Thin and inconsistent product details during item set-up have cascading effects. This could lead to incorrect product listings that hurt on-site search, SEO, sponsored ads, and product listings on Google. 

Personalization With AI vs. Without AI

• With AI . . . Brands will deliver experiences that feel more personal and engaging to individual shoppers.
• AI’s advantages:
  • On-site search is enhanced, so people can find products that exactly match their inquiries in your search bar.
  • Product recommendations are customized, serving up relevant items that are based on your customers’ preferences.
• Final impact: People are more likely to connect with a higher volume of personally relevant products in your inventory. They are also more likely to explore your assortment further. 

• Without AI . . . Brands will rely on traditional means to drive on-site conversion.
• Missed opportunities:
  • Your most relevant products will have a more difficult time being surfaced to customers.
  • On-site search may be clunky and it may not account for timely, trend-focused product descriptions.
  • Relevant products are not curated to match an individual’s preferences.
• Final impact: Order sizes and purchase volumes aren’t as likely to increase.

Capitalizing On Trends With AI vs. Without AI

• With AI . . . It’s easy to capitalize on classic trends, micro-trends, and fads in a world of fast-paced, social media-fueled, ultra-short trend cycles.
• AI’s advantages:
  • Lily AI’s team of internal fashion, beauty, and home goods experts promptly update our systems to include the very hottest trend-focused language and content.
  • The latest fads, sourced from the runway, social media, and leading forecasters are automatically added to products.
• Final impact: When the newest fashion, beauty, and home decor trends crop up, shoppers will find items that fall into their categories in your online store.

• Without AI . . . Employees have to manually analyze trends and add their descriptive copy to your individual product records.
• Missed opportunities:
  • Slower manual updates may happen too late to be relevant.
  • Copy teams may not be trained as retail trend experts, and therefore, can’t determine which trends and trend language will be relevant to include in your product attributes.
• Final impact: Your brand simply can’t capitalize on the latest trends as quickly and efficiently. Trends may be over by the time they’re accounted for across your retail ecosystem.

Learn How to Work With AI in 2024

When it comes to enhancing the customer experiences and improving retail bottom lines, AI is a solution which no other can match. Using AI-powered image recognition and natural language processing to extract customer-centric product attributes, Lily AI allows retailers to remove manual friction and solve automation at scale, with 10x more attributes that are relevant, accurate, and consistent. Ultimately, this helps retailers connect customers with the products they want.