It’s been said that Artificial Intelligence will either be the best thing to happen to human development or the end of humanity as we know it. Luckily, the truth lies somewhere in between these two extremes, which means that Artificial Intelligence in eCommerce will become both an amazing resource and a real threat to the future of business owners. Here’s how it works, and what you need to know about AI development in eCommerce now before it’s too late.
A brief history of AI
AI has been around for a long time. The term Artificial Intelligence was first used in 1956, to describe a branch of computer science that studies cognitive tasks that humans have traditionally done, such as intelligent robots and language processing. AI has been growing exponentially over the past two decades with an acceleration in recent years thanks to eCommerce websites like Amazon and Alibaba using AI technology to help customers find what they are looking for online. The future is bright for Artificial Intelligence in eCommerce, but there is still a lot of work to be done before it becomes commonplace.
Where AI stands now and where it’s headed
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are essentially buzzwords right now, but how do they work? There are two main types of AI: general and specific. General AI is what we all imagine when we think of robots going rogue, while specific is more focused on a single task (like facial recognition). Right now, many companies are working to integrate these technologies into existing systems, like your phone’s digital assistant or self-driving cars. But as AI continues to grow, it will start influencing eCommerce directly—and that could have some interesting implications for businesses. It might be a few years before you can outsource development of your website’s artificial intelligence module to an eCommerce development company , but once it becomes possible, there are several areas where it could make waves
Should you outsource your AI development?
If you’re interested in taking advantage of AI to increase your sales, you have a few options. You can hire an outside developer to build it for you—in which case it will likely cost $20k to $50k. You can recruit an AI specialist and get your team moving on it—but expect a six-figure salary or even higher, depending on how specialized they are and how much startup capital is needed.
Keeping up with the growth of AI
Of course, there’s no way to know exactly how artificial intelligence will change ecommerce over time. One thing is certain: The growth and development of AI will occur faster than many marketers are prepared for. For example, as artificial intelligence gets more sophisticated, it will automate tasks that currently require human oversight. To stay ahead of these developments, hire an ecommerce development company that has experience integrating AI into its platforms or find a tech consultant who can help you develop a technology strategy around these technologies.
How will AI change retail?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to revolutionize retail. In 2017, AI was used for targeted marketing and predictive shopping for retailers. Now, AI will aid shoppers by helping them find products that suit their tastes and preferences. Companies are already hiring ecommerce developers to help create AI-powered virtual assistants for their websites and apps that would use your data from previous purchases, social media activity, purchase history, calendar entries and more to recommend products you’re likely to buy next.
What can we expect from AI?
According to Charles Chow, CEO of Adelphic, artificial intelligence is going to be a game changer for online retail. In fact, he believes AI and machine learning will have just as big an impact on e-commerce as they have had on travel and hospitality. According to John Collison, Co-Founder & President at Stripe: As Stripe scales globally, we’re working hard to improve our fraud models and simultaneously reduce false positives. We use neural networks to predict whether a given transaction is likely to be fraudulent or not.
This has led us to several insights about how we can make more accurate predictions with less data by leveraging deep learning techniques that allow us to find patterns in customer behavior that are highly predictive of fraud without modeling specific rules or features. We’ve also found that using deep nets allows us to detect new types of fraud that were previously impossible to model with traditional approaches. To do so, we train two separate neural networks: one which predicts whether or not a transaction is fraudulent, and another which predicts whether or not it’s likely to get approved if it were submitted today (the current user model). We then combine these two predictions into one overall probability score for each transaction.
Conclusion
The future is now. And a lot sooner than you think. Big retailers are already hiring artificial intelligence developers to create bots that can learn and predict customer behavior, making shopping easier and more enjoyable. Check out our shopify store at or follow us on instagram at #shopengagement to see some of our latest products! To hire an ecommerce development company that works with artificial intelligence in ecommerce, Contact Us Today!
