From Monday 11 November, the retailer will be the first Dutch supermarket with a personal AI assistant in the AH app, which, among other things, answers the question ‘What are we eating today?’ In addition, customers can take a photo of their groceries, after which they can also view suggestions for recipes in the new Cook & Scan feature in the app. And the app can be used by English speakers from next week.
The retailer is not launching the new Gen AI features quietly. The 15th anniversary of the AH app was the reason for a grand presentation at a special press meeting at Albert Heijn’s head office in Zaandam. Many trade journalists, but also tech journalists from national newspapers were present. And AI author Remy Gielingwho had ‘influencer’ on his name tag. Special, because so many press meetings are no longer organized within marketing & tech. After a cup of coffee and a piece of fruit, we received various demos and were able to ask questions to the directors and project leaders present.
To emphasize that Albert Heijn is the first retailer in the Netherlands to work with AI in this way, and is investing heavily in the future of AI in services, CEO Marit van Egmond present. Because from now on, Albert Heijn wants to be perceived again as the retailer in the Netherlands that is always the first to come up with technological innovations.
We are therefore a fully-fledged Food & Tech company. We want to be the first retailer to use AI to help customers make eating and shopping more fun. – van Egmond
Sjoerd Hollemanresponsible for strategy, product & analytics at Albert Heijn, mentions some figures. The AH app now has 4.5 million app users per month and 1.1 million premium members. He gave the assembled press a small but interesting insight into how a major party such as Albert Heijn is currently applying AI.
Technology community
More than 1,000 data scientists, engineers, product owners and developers now work in AH’s technology community. From the moment ChatGPT was introduced, the retailer experimented with the possibilities of GenAI. A responsible GPT environment was built together with Microsoft. Interns were then allowed to ‘get loose’ with AI in the Gen AI lab. The insights that emerged from this may or may not have been converted into use cases. The English-language solution, for example, came from a hackathon.
AI applications in customer service
In addition to the features in the app, AH also applies AI in its customer service, for example with AI that summarizes and registers the content from calls, but also makes (trend) analyzes of the collected customer feedback. And with Copilot, codes are written faster and people are experimenting with AI visuals for retail media.
Purpose
Albert Heijn finds AI innovation so important that the products do not even have to be completely perfect at launch. Holleman: ‘If it works, we will make it available to everyone. We look at where the value is for customers, suppliers, and we go from there.’ AI must contribute to the retailer’s purpose: a healthy, social and sustainable society.
It must make sense, make it easier and inspire.
When is this a success? Holleman: ‘First of all, we want customers to be satisfied users, but you can count on everything being measured, with numerous KPIs.’ The objective for AH was already mentioned by Van Egmond (making eating and shopping easier and more fun): translated into the new features, I think this means that customers come into contact with products and the content in the AH app more and more often.
Complex recipes
Back to the app features. The AH assistant was built for the recipe database and was given “Think like a chef” as context. Customers can ask simple questions and then view recipe and product suggestions. The assistant also offers practical tips for cooking or storing dishes.
To make the recipes workable for AI, the recipes had to be completely rewritten into (computer) language that AI would understand. A difficult job because recipes are complex material and you have to train AI to recognize all the different ingredients and combinations. The assistant doesn’t know everything yet, but according to Holleman he is learning quickly and becoming smarter.
Also read the article about mis- and misunderstanding with chatbots that I wrote earlier this year, where a recipe bot was also used in the research.
The assistant does not store any conversations (and therefore no customer data). You start again with every session and there is no connection with your personal customer profile. Albert Heijn communicates this in the disclaimer, as well as the fact that the assistant is a first version and therefore does not know everything yet. Are the customer profiles ever linked? Sjoerd Holleman: ‘That will probably happen at some point, but privacy is important. If the customer ever wants this, he will have to indicate it himself.’ If you specify food preferences in the app, it becomes a bit more personal.
Scan & Kook
Albert Heijn wants customers to interact with products and AH content more and more often in the AH app. In addition to the assistant, there will also be a Scan & Cook functionality in the app, where AI makes the link between image and text. That is, you take a photo of a number of products and AI searches for a number of (existing) recipes. For example, a photo of cottage cheese and beer shows a recipe with vegetables in beer batter. In terms of dairy, AI then looks for mayonnaise, so it’s almost good
According to Albert Heijn, the function should help make cooking and shopping easier, but also refers to the purpose, in this case to reduce food waste in the last step in the chain, at people’s homes.
My AH app in English
With the English function, Albert Heijn hopes that more international users will use the app. More languages will follow in the near future, Sjoerd Holleman mentions Turkish and Polish.
Albert Heijn may be the first retailer in the Netherlands to make AI available in customer interactions (parties such as Picnic and bol have been using AI for some time, including in their logistics systems), but as far as American retailers, such as Walmart, have already used AI. in the negotiation of suppliersthe retailer certainly doesn’t want to go yet. Albert Heijn values its relationship with suppliers and adheres to the stricter privacy rules that apply in Europe, which are included in the disclaimer in the app, as well as the fact that the AH assistant ‘doesn’t know everything yet’.
Header image source: Lea Rae / Shutterstock.com
Source: www.frankwatching.com
