Using AI in Web Development

Following on from our article Ethics should be the key behind AI in the UK, we thought we’d look at effective ways AI is being used in web-development, particularly in the e-commerce sector and how it identifies user behavior.

1. It’s making searching faster

Voice searches via Siri and Cortana are already a common way of searching for the younger generation of consumers. In this age, consumers are eager to get the information they desire in the fastest and easiest way. Therefore it’s understandable that this technology will become more in demand and a voice search option will become an important part of future e-commerce website development.

A great example of this was launched in the Pinterest browser extension in March 2017, whereby if you found an item you like online, whether this be a beautiful pair of shoes or a must-have accessory for your home – this tool allows you to select an item in any photography online and ask Pinterest to seek and find similar items online using its image recognition software.

2. Make interaction even better

Based on Artificial Intelligence, Chatbots have made the communication process more natural and they will soon learn how to recognise human emotions (eek!). More and more online buyers will find it easier to interact with a website via chatbot, which will remove all communication barriers and make the shopping process easier and more pleasant.

As a result of implementing Chatbots, the interaction will be similar to a real conversation with a shopping consultant, where you can obtain information regarding the features of a product, quality, and price. If you want to stay on trend, implementing chatbot whilst developing your website might be something you’d want to consider.

Beauty giant Sephora use Chatbots to engage with consumers, as does the likes of eBay and Burberry. Want to know more? A Better Lemonade Stand has a great article on 10 E-commerce Brands Succeeding with Chatbots

3. Adapt your website to your user’s needs

AI solutions offer you the capability to adapt your website to better suit the user’s needs. It can evaluate customers moods and understand their preference by using real-time learning technology. Using the information received, the technology can dynamically modify the website for each customer in a variety of possibilities such as;

• Displaying personalised ads
• Alter prices at optimal times
• Serve tailored video content to stimulate sales

A great example of a platform / AI shopping assistant is Mona, want a new pair of jeans? You can send Mona on a mission to search 300+ online retailers to find the best products, the best promotions to make your shopping experience as painless as possible.

4. Offer a personalised store experience

Making the navigation through the website intuitively clear is no longer the only goal, providing a consumer with the perfect shopping environment online is also very important – especially considering the rise of online purchases. Introducing AI solutions to the online store experience helps your store to become drastically more personalised.

When a consumer can easily get what they want, when they want it, it feels as if the store was created particularly for them, which can only be a positive experience!

Do you use Spotify? If so, it’s Discover Weekly feature (which reached 40 million people in its first year alone) uses AI to generate a personalised playlist (of music you may have never heard before) to each listener based on data collected about what you’re listening to, what genre. It’s been heralded as the modern day mixtape!

5. Effective marketing

Machine learning, as a part of Artificial Intelligence, opens great opportunities for e-commerce marketers. These technologies allow marketing predictions to be made based on customer behaviour, such as:

• What kind of goods the consumer will buy next;
• What types of products annoy consumers;
• Preferred device and channel on getting to your website;

Are the majority of users accessing the store on a mobile device? Is your store mobile-optimised? Is a particular product generating a negative response from consumers? Is it causing them to have a bad experience on the site? These are all identifiable using AI, providing you with the intel to tailor your marketing accordingly.

Familiar with Amazon? If their earnings are any indication – we’d say that most people are. Amazon use AI to market to consumers with Product recommendations based on what you have previously purchased. So if you’ve seen the… ‘we thought you might like these…..’ It’s not magic, just some very clever AI wizardry!

So, there we have it. Even though we’ve focussed largely on e-commerce in this article – the use of AI is not just limited to this sector. It’s everywhere, we have Alexa in our homes, Siri or Cortana on our mobile devices and intelligent chatbots on the websites we visit. It’s definitely a technology you might want to consider when planning for future web developments…

Unless you’re fans of the Terminator, in which case, you may want to keep clear!