Creating Innovative, Immersive Experiences in eCommerce with Generative AI
eCommerce has changed how people browse for products, purchase them, and get them delivered. From discovering a product through an ad or word-of-mouth recommendation to finding it in a retail store, interacting with the salesperson, experiencing the product, and purchasing it, customers had to put more effort into shopping at every stage of the customer journey in the past. But now, they can do everything from the convenience of their couch through a smartphone, thanks to the eCommerce revolution.
However, eCommerce could not replace one aspect of shopping in a brick-and-mortar store: the product experience. In a retail store, customers could check out the look and feel of a product and examine it thoroughly. In an eCommerce store, they rely on the images, videos, and other visual content provided by the online store to understand a product before making a purchase decision. So, the entire product experience in an online store hinges on the visual elements and virtual assets provided by the online store.
There is a clear need to simulate the real-world product experience in eCommerce and bring it as close as possible to the shopping experience in a brick-and-mortar store. This is where the unique generative AI innovations in customer experience come in.
4 Unique Generative AI Innovations in Customer Experience
Some of the unique generative AI innovations that simulate real-world shopping experiences include:
1. Virtual Try-Ons
Virtual try-on has pushed the online product experience quite far. It has enabled customers to visualize the products on themselves and in their immediate surroundings. It has let them see and sense the relevance of these products in their lives and how they fit into their lifestyle and fashion, thus helping them make a more informed purchase decision. Virtual try-ons have been more suitable for eCommerce sites that promote clothing, cosmetics, fashion, and accessories.
Virtual try-ons have advanced AI and Augmented Reality (AR) underpinnings. They are created by following these steps.
The business owners integrate digital wardrobe on their eCommerce site for users to access during a virtual try-on session.
They create highly detailed and realistic 3D models of the listed products manually or with AI tools and upload them to the wardrobe, mapping them to the corresponding product page. These models capture the accurate product dimensions, textures, colors, and other vital attributes.
Before accessing the digital wardrobe, the users provide their body measurements and upload their images.
Based on the measurements, AI-powered systems generate personalized and configurable 3D avatars/models of the user.
Some AI systems automatically generate digital avatars from the uploaded user images or by scanning their bodies using a smartphone camera.
During the virtual try-on session, when the user selects a product, the system overlays the 3D model of the product onto the avatar.
Some AI systems let users customize the product size, color, and fit during the try-on to find the most suitable product variant.
These measurements and avatars integrate with the corresponding customer profiles. Machine Learning algorithms can constantly learn from these measurements to offer hyper-personalized product suggestions that accurately match customer preferences. It improves the shopping experience, increases customer satisfaction, and reduces the likelihood of returns due to poor fit.
2. AI Product Photography for eCommerce
The quality of photos in an eCommerce site plays a crucial role in conveying the looks and features of the products listed and helping customers make a purchase decision. However, if your inventory contains thousands of products and variants, conducting product photo shoots and uploading images are monumental tasks requiring vast budgets and human resources.
Smaller eCommerce businesses and start-ups cannot afford all these, putting them at a disadvantage. However, AI-driven tools have emerged as game-changers, enabling eCommerce businesses to automate the generation of professional-grade photographs at scale.
These AI systems use:
- Deep learning algorithms to learn from vast sets of existing photos and determine the look and feel of the product images
- Image recognition technology to identify various elements in photos, including products, design elements, other objects, and backgrounds
- Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to train the systems on data sets and produce new realistic product images
- Computer vision to read and manipulate images
- Automation of image enhancement and background removal at scale
With these pathbreaking technologies, AI-powered tools enable the following capabilities on eCommerce websites.
AI-powered automated image generation enables eCommerce businesses to generate images based on text descriptions and various product attributes, reducing the need for extensive photoshoots.
Businesses can shoot product photos in-house with inexpensive equipment like mobile phone cameras and upload them; AI algorithms enhance the image details, correct colors, and optimize lighting to make them appealing and upgrade them to a professional level.
AI automatically removes backgrounds from these uploaded images or alters them to make them look cleaner and more consistent.
AI tools automatically apply color grading and style presets and align the product images with brand aesthetics.
AI algorithms read customer preferences, behavior, search history, purchase history, and other relevant data points to dynamically adjust and personalize product images.
They verify the quality and consistency of the images and standardize them before uploading, maintaining uniformity across the product catalog.
Generative AI tools create 3D models from standard product photos, allowing customers to interact with products virtually.
3. AR and VR in eCommerce
Photos, 3D models, and videos may depict images realistically. But Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) allow customers to visualize them in their immediate surroundings and create realistic overlays of the product on their own images and videos, enabling immersive eCommerce shopping experiences.
AR lets customers see products listed on an eCommerce site, such as furniture, decor, or even clothing, in their real-world environment using their smartphone or AR glasses.
VR creates fully immersive eCommerce shopping environments, such as virtual showrooms and fitting rooms, where customers can explore and interact with products in a lifelike setting. Customers can use VR headsets to enable and access these features.
Both AR and VR can display detailed product information, reviews, and usage instructions directly within the virtual environment, providing a richer shopping experience.
AR Tools and their Capabilities
- AR applications integrate with smartphone cameras or see-through AR glasses to overlay virtual objects in the real world.
- They use mobile camera cameras and sensors to interpret the dimensions of the space and sense the objects in them to overlay the products on the real-life, real-time imagery of the space.
- These tools use motion tracking technology to adjust the position of the 3D product model overlays to match the camera movements, ensuring a realistic and consistent view.
- These AR tools accept user inputs on those devices to manipulate the product 3D model overlays and move them around, enlarge, rotate, and change their attributes.
VR Tools and their Capabilities
- VR tools are different; they create a completely immersive environment separated from real-world imagery.
- VR environments support virtual showrooms, stores, and try-on rooms.
- Unlike AR overlays, spatial computing enables users to explore virtual environments in VR by moving freely through the virtual space and examining the 3D product models from various angles and distances.
- VR apps let users interact with the products in virtual fitting rooms, where they can customize their look, style, and fit.
- VR assembly guides and simulations enable users to interact with the product components and try assembling them virtually before making a purchase.
4. Visual Product Search
Visual product search is an AI-driven innovation that simplifies the shopping process. It radically changes how customers find the products. Instead of searching for products using keywords, visual product search allows users to upload images. AI-powered image recognition analyzes the product images and reads various elements like color, design, and texture. Machine learning algorithms learn customer preferences from the image attributes and find similar products on the eCommerce site.
For instance, a customer can take a photo of a dress they like and find similar styles in various colors and sizes on an eCommerce platform. Visual search minimizes customers’ efforts and enhances customer experience, thus ensuring a seamless and intuitive shopping journey.
The Future Lies in eCommerce Innovation
These unique generative AI innovations pave the future for eCommerce by transforming customer experience and enabling customers to experience the products better in virtual environments. As they grow in power and capabilities, these technologies can simulate a real-world experience in a brick-and-mortar store and convince more people to purchase from eCommerce sites.
FAQs
1. How are AR and VR used in eCommerce?
AR and VR enhance the eCommerce customer experience by enabling product visualization in real-life and virtual environments. They help customers see how products fit into their lives and immediate surroundings, improving the overall shopping experience and increasing customer satisfaction.
2. How is generative AI used in eCommerce?
Generative AI in eCommerce creates realistic visual content, including product images, videos, and 3D models, enabling virtual try-ons and simulating product experience. AI streamlines content creation and improves customer satisfaction by making shopping more interactive and engaging.
3. What is AI visual product search?
AI visual product search is a technology used in eCommerce that helps customers upload reference images and find similar products on an eCommerce site that match those images.
4. What is an AI virtual try-on?
AI virtual try-on is a technology that enables customers to simulate in-store product experience by showing how clothing, accessories, or cosmetics would look on them in Virtual Reality.
