Shoppers who use the Alby chatbot are twice as likely to make a purchase and less likely to contact customer support.
Retail marketing technology platform Bluecore acquired artificial intelligence chatbot Alby for an undisclosed price this week.
On a product detail page, the Alby chatbot uses generative artificial intelligence to populate the most likely questions a shopper will have that will drive sales when answered, such as “Is this makeup tested on animals?” or “Is this tent easy to set up?” Each brand can configure the number of questions, with some showing three and others eight, said Fayez Mohamood, CEO and co-founder of Bluecore.
The chatbot, which Alby markets as an “AI assistant,” can respond to questions and provide recommendations, according to the press release announcement. Shoppers that engage with the chatbot are twice as likely to make a purchase than shoppers who don’t use the chatbot, and chatbot shoppers are less likely to contact customer support. This is based on average data across Alby’s 25 retail customers, said Alby CEO and co-founder Max Bennett. In addition, shoppers rate their satisfaction with Alby at 85%, meaning they responded at a four or five on a five-point scale to the question, “How helpful did you find this experience,” Bennett said.
Bluecore plans to add the artificial intelligence technology to its offering for its 400 retail clients — such as Tapestry, Express and Alo Yoga — and some components it will add for an additional fee, Mohamood said.
“We also anticipate this acquisition to accelerate generative capabilities across our existing products and some features will come as part of the existing agreement,” Mohamood said.
Besides prepopulated questions, the data Alby gathers gives retailers event-triggered marketing opportunities with more personalized data, according to the companies.
As a part of the acquisition, Bennett, who also was a co-founder of Bluecore, will join Bluecore to lead Alby. The deal was a combination of cash and stock. Bluecore anticipates full integration with Alby will be complete and available to retailers in Q1 of 2025.
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