Promote Your Products with AI and AR

January 26, 2021

Customising personalised experiences for your consumers by integrating augmented reality and artificial intelligence technologies.

  • Using AI and AR can help you differentiate your e-commerce platform from your competition.

  • Incorporate augmented reality tech to highlight your brand using social media stickers and filter features.

  • Artificial intelligence is a great tool for analysing data to focus on reliable sales leads.

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced the entire world to shift and accommodate a new reality, it affected nearly every aspect of our lives. With industries like tourism and the commercial sector working overtime to figure out how to cope with the seemingly overnight changes. Out of that was the emergence of technological advancements and adaptations to ensure that the hit to the economy brought about by the pandemic was negated.

We also saw the incredible surge of e-commerce in the midst of it all — as physical stores were temporarily closed and flights cancelled, the majority of our local and international shopping moved online, and plenty of e-commerce sites were set up, most of them looking pretty similar to one another. While this gave us that much-needed convenience for our shopping experience, looking at numerous set-ups across different e-commerce platforms that look the same can easily be tiring.

Customisation has become one of the biggest factors that separate one shopping site from another, as well as an enhanced experience and actively interacting with those sites. This is where features such as augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) will come into play.

AR can simply be defined as digital information overlaid over the real world, while AI generally refers to any human-like intelligence exhibited by machines, capable of mimicking the human mind’s capabilities. Neither of these technologies are new — and with just a touch of our smartphones, we can easily incorporate both AI and AR into business practices to deliver a better experience for consumers.

Marketing with AR

Customers, more often than not, would usually be more willing to buy a product if they are able to test it out beforehand.

While we in Brunei have been fortunate enough to be able to go to physical stores now, having another option to showcase commercial products will definitely be beneficial in the long run.

Augmented reality shopping experiences are rising in trend, owing to the virtual interactive features; customers can try out clothes, makeup and even visualise how prospective furniture might look in their living room before buying them. Warby Parker, an online glasses retailer utilises this feature by prompting customers to upload their photo to see the fit of their eyeglass and sunglass frames. IKEA’s mobile app, Ikea Place, supports both 2D and 3D image recognition and image tracking. According to the brand, its AR capability is able to measure room dimension and allows users to virtually place furniture from IKEA’s catalogue in their home.

Another common use for AR these days exists on social media — specifically, sticker and filter features. Customizing a pack of stickers or a filter for Instagram allows other users of the platform to interact with your brand in a simple but fun way! In addition, you can also create a branded hashtag sticker to highlight your products. If you want to get started on making your own stickers or filters, here are some easy tutorials and step-by-step instructions!

A Reliable Assistant

AI technology when used to its maximum potential can be an incredibly useful tool for your business to follow up on sales leads in an efficient manner, as it can analyze data that determines which leads would bring more profit. It can also help your brand to better connect with your audience by understanding their needs.

Personalising your customer’s experience can be the ultimate deciding factor when it comes to buying your product. For example, skincare brand Olay uses artificial intelligence, as well as a few questions and a selfie to help determine which of their products are recommended for your skin type and concern.

Another website that utilises AI to include personalised experiences for their users is Pinterest. Its visual search functions are designed to identify visual components for recording items based on your search queries — making it easier than ever for you to have a rich online experience.

Microsoft’s impressive chatbot tech is powered by forum and discussion website Reddit, which has an archive of nearly 150 million conversations. This allows it to have a more human-like responsiveness to its chatbot, ensuring that its tone will be a more conversational one.

Evolving Consumers

With the expansion and innovation of today’s technologies, consumers will only become more tech-savvy in response.

As brand owners, we will have to also constantly grow along with them in order to meet their wants and demands, by learning to incorporate said technologies into our business practices and cultivating good, satisfying experiences for them.