Tuesday, June 13, 2023

CARREFOUR INTEGRATES OPENAI TECHNOLOGIES AND LAUNCHES A GENERATIVE AI-POWERED SHOPPING EXPERIENCE

Carrefour is deploying three innovative tech solutions based around ChatGPT technology: an advice robot for shopping on carrefour.fr, description sheets for Carrefour brand products on its website and support for purchasing procedures. These solutions are based on OpenAI technologies, particularly GPT-4.

Carrefour has launched Hopla, a chatbot based on ChatGPT which will be integrated into the Carrefour.fr website starting on 8 June. Customers will be able to use this natural-language AI to help them with their daily shopping. They will find it on the site’s home page and will be able to ask it for help in choosing products for their basket, based on their budget, food constraints they may have or menu ideas. The robot can also suggest anti-waste solutions for reusing ingredients and composing associated recipes and baskets. The robot is connected to the site’s search engine and offers customers lists of products related to what they are discussing, right up until they make their purchase.

The generative AI is also used to enrich Carrefour brand product sheets, with more than 2000 product now online. This is the result of work undertaken by OpenAI technology in describing products and providing customers with more information. Ultimately, Carrefour wants to use this technology for all of it product sheets.

Finally, Carrefour has started using generative AI for its internal purchasing processes. This solution is currently being developed alongside teams from the non-retail purchasing division and will help them with their everyday tasks – such as drafting invitations to tender and analysing quotes.

These solutions are the result of a collaboration with Bain & Company and Microsoft, partners of OpenAI. They use Microsoft’s OpenAI Azure service to access OpenAI’s GPT-4 technology. At the same time, they are able to leverage all of Microsoft Azure’s data security, reliability and confidentiality features, to ensure compliance with GDPR (general data protection regulation).

“Thanks to our digital and data culture, we have already turned a corner when it comes to artificial intelligence. Generative AI will enable us to enrich the customer experience and profoundly transform our working methods. Integrating OpenAI technologies into what we do is an amazing opportunity for Carrefour. By pioneering the use of generative AI, we want to be one step ahead and invent the retail of tomorrow”, Alexandre Bompard, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Carrefour Group.