Boots is testing ‘AI personal shopper’

In a further move to regain its lead in the UK beauty market, Boots is planning the launch of a pioneering ChatGPT ‘personal shopper’ for its website. 

The high street retailer, which this month opened its Battersea power Station dedicated beauty store, is understood to be testing an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that would be able to offer recommendations to shoppers, reported The Telegraph. However, Boots has yet to comment.

The service is expected to focus on beauty products and work is understood to be at a very early stage, the report said.

Boots has a long-standing partnership with Microsoft, the commercial distributor of ChatGPT, and uses the AI tool in other parts of its business.

UK retailers are among the global leaders when it comes to plans to add artificial intelligence to their operations over the next year, a new report has shown.

The study, from SLI Systems, shows UK stores are more pro-active on the AI front than retailers in many other countries. Worldwide, 54% of e-commerce professionals report that their company uses or plans to add AI in the future. And 20% are expecting to add AI within 12 months.
 
One of Britain’s biggest fashion e-tailers Shop Direct is among the frontrunners. After investing heavily in boosting smartphone sales via transactional app upgrades, it has moved on to AI and is to launch a sophisticated chatbot within its MyVery app later this year. It also plans to add AI to its decision-making over whether to offer credit terms to shoppers.

Net-A-Porter is also adding AI to its offer too as it targets greater personalisation for its high-spending customers, and back with the mass-market, ASOS has dived into AI having rolled out a visual search tool this year while Zalando earlier this year unveiled plans to use a ChatGPT-powered bot to guide shoppers.