3013: Bridging Online and Offline: Salsita's Conversational AI in eCommerce

[00:00:03] Have you ever wished that you could design your dream kitchen or custom piece of jewelry,

[00:00:09] just by chatting with an expert, or without leaving your couch? Well today on Tech Talks Daily,

[00:00:17] I'm exploring a revolutionary shift in the world of eCommerce. That could make that a reality.

[00:00:23] Because joining me today is Matt Gertner, the CEO of Sol Ceta. A company that's breaking new ground

[00:00:31] with AI powered 3D product configuring it as essentially these tools allow consumers to design

[00:00:37] and customize products using simple conversational prompts. A little bit like you're chatting

[00:00:44] with a sales rep but it's powered by AI so it's much in going to a website and it's all embedded

[00:00:50] in a retail as website. It's a significant upgrade from chat box. Let me tell you so

[00:00:55] today I want to dive into how this technology works, it's implication for the future of online shopping

[00:01:02] and the broader impact of conversational AI on eCommerce. Before we welcome our guest onto

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[00:02:13] today but now it's time to dive into today's fascinating conversation with my guest.

[00:02:20] So buckle up and hold on tight because no matter where you're listening in the world,

[00:02:24] it's time for me to be my audience all the way to Prague where Matt is waiting to join us today.

[00:02:31] So a massive wall welcome to the show Matt can he tell everyone listening a little about who

[00:02:35] you are and what you do? Sure, yeah so believe it or not I'm actually British I was born in London

[00:02:43] to English parents but moves to the states when I was a small child so I and not to tell people

[00:02:49] that I'm British because they just laugh at me as you might have understood yourself. People

[00:02:54] fight a very hard to accept that I'm English since I don't really sound or act English at all.

[00:02:59] But I take group in the US I went to university in the states as well,

[00:03:04] studied computer science and linguistics and maybe because of that kind of international background

[00:03:09] I've always been interested in foreign languages which are my interest in linguistics and also

[00:03:13] led me to move to Europe straight after university I kind of bounced around a bit I lived in Paris

[00:03:18] and Hamburg working as a software developer. And then I guess 97, a friend of mine got in touch with me

[00:03:26] and said hey I would you'd like to start an IT company with me in Prague and I was still kind

[00:03:30] of young and foot-loose looking for a change so I came and checked out Bob for the first time

[00:03:36] and really loved it fell in love immediately so I ended up moving here a few months later

[00:03:40] and I've been living here and working as an entrepreneur ever since then and so I'll see

[00:03:45] to is my third company set it up in 2010 so we'll be coming up on our 15th year and a

[00:03:52] verse three next year. Wow you've had an incredible journey that for Britain to the US Paris

[00:03:57] Hamburg Prague incredible and I'm curious if you look at your entire story can you give me a

[00:04:04] bit of an overview of your role at Solcita now and how that background in computer science,

[00:04:09] linguistic and the travel that you've been on now that maybe influenced your approach to technology

[00:04:15] and in particular AI. Yeah well look I mean I'm the founder of the company and the CEO of the

[00:04:20] company so I do all the kinds of things that you might expect which basically means doing everything

[00:04:23] that no one else is doing or setting the strategy broadly to kind of take the company to where

[00:04:32] we want to be being a programmer I think you know that's heavily influenced my work as a CEO of

[00:04:38] a software agency because the number one most important thing that you need to do is hire great

[00:04:42] developers and I see a lot of companies that have not that nickel founders sort of struggle with

[00:04:47] that because it's not always easy to recognize great developers without having a deep understanding

[00:04:51] of the work yourself so I think that's where we've been really strong is that I do think I've

[00:04:56] got a pretty strong understanding of what you look for when your eyes offer developers and also

[00:05:00] I think they like to work for a company where there's a technical founder where they feel like

[00:05:04] you know you get them and it's engineering focused so that's been one of the major aspects I

[00:05:08] think where my background has kind of influenced my role in the company when it comes to AI

[00:05:14] that comes more maybe out of my broader backgrounds that are not just computer science and

[00:05:19] linguistics in fact the degree at Penn when I studied there and this was a late 80s early 90s

[00:05:26] so completely different error in terms of the technology but they call it cognitive science

[00:05:30] and already back then we were kind of studying how do we make computers fake and act more like

[00:05:36] human and so it's been an area that I've been extremely interested in for decades really even though

[00:05:42] it hasn't necessarily into quite recently had that big an influence on the work we've done

[00:05:46] just because it hasn't been that big a market and you know AI's been one of the

[00:05:50] technologies that sort of failed to deliver over and over and over again and yet it's always

[00:05:55] been kind of that each that I wanted to scratch so seeing this latest generation of

[00:05:59] artificial intelligence technologies with gender the AI and large language models has been

[00:06:05] you know the culmination of sort of my dream throughout my entire career and having the possibility

[00:06:10] now that jump on a technology trend which I am 100% convinced is for real and it's going to have

[00:06:15] real impact on the way people work very quickly has been terrific and definitely add a big

[00:06:22] influence on where I want to take the company and for people hearing about solceeter for the

[00:06:27] very first time software specialises in designing and developing complex modern web applications

[00:06:34] to mobile apps but how would you introduce everyone listening here and about you for the first

[00:06:38] what you do and what makes what you offer different to other areas in the business right

[00:06:45] why won't you say it's quite right I mean historically the company has been very much the software

[00:06:48] agencies so we do software development for clients internationally mostly so most of our clients

[00:06:54] are either in North America or in Western Europe and inclusive big name to eBay was no one of our

[00:06:59] biggest clients and so when they add software development to do and they don't have all the resources

[00:07:04] to do it in house we provided engineers to help them with that and generally complete teams so

[00:07:10] not just body shopping but really saying give us a problem will we'll solve it with software

[00:07:14] and our thing has been just what I said earlier I think we've always been very very strong

[00:07:17] and hiring so where for many companies is difficult to even recognize what a great developer is

[00:07:23] we have been able to provide them with very high quality teams so to kind of not force them

[00:07:29] to do all that difficult recruitment themselves give them a lot more flexibility over the team

[00:07:34] and resources that are available to them that said we are actively pivoting right now and

[00:07:41] the spirit started a few years ago when we decided to start to develop a product for developing

[00:07:47] 3D product integrators and that just came out of an interest in mine in the commerce

[00:07:53] desired as specialized and some products that we've worked on in the past so our product is a

[00:08:00] platform that makes it easy for brands that are selling to consumers directly, D to C as we call it

[00:08:08] and have configurable products to provide some kind of interface to those customers so they can

[00:08:13] design what they want so let's take an example of the quantity of ours who sells kitchen ranges

[00:08:18] high-end French kitchen ranges that are extremely customizable you can say exactly how big you

[00:08:23] want it to be what color you want it to be, what you know do you want gas burn is induction burners

[00:08:28] and integrated wine fridge you name it it's really infinitely flexible in what you can configure

[00:08:34] but they didn't have any reliability to sell that online because you know how good the

[00:08:38] customers best of all what they want it you know they'd have to you know get an email conversation

[00:08:42] have someone drafted for them and it was a very slow kind of inefficient process so we developed

[00:08:48] using our platform a configurator for them that you see the product in 3D you configure it you

[00:08:53] add stuff you remove stuff you change stuff and in real find me see exactly what that's going to

[00:08:57] look like it's 3D so you can spin it around you can view it in AR and so that's very a real game

[00:09:02] change of those kind of companies itself configurable products to write to consumer which is a big

[00:09:07] growing segment of the market thanks to things like 3D printing so yeah that's been our major

[00:09:12] focus over the last few years and there's an AI angle I don't know if you want me to get into that

[00:09:16] way but I think that's probably the most interesting and intriguing part of the work we're doing

[00:09:22] right now yeah and that's what put you on my radar that 3D product configurator with conversational

[00:09:28] UI if we take a look under the hood I mean this will set you up perfectly for the AI angle here

[00:09:34] but can you tell me more about the technology how it all works and what makes it unique compared

[00:09:39] to the more traditional configurators that's around there of course yeah I think part of it is

[00:09:45] just the evolution of web technologies which is something that I've been observing as

[00:09:49] as a as a CEO of a web agency it's been really interesting to watch just web technologies

[00:09:55] evolve and grow up over the past really since the web you know I've been working with these

[00:10:00] technologies for basically 30 years now and at the beginning they were very limited and there were

[00:10:04] lots of proprietary technologies so we'd crop up to fill in gaps but over recent years it's been

[00:10:10] amazing to see how much you can do with standard web technologies and part of that is 3D and my

[00:10:14] other things so a lot of what we've done is just to take this the newer standard web technologies

[00:10:20] and build something so you don't have to have a kind of like it while I get running in your

[00:10:23] browser to do something in 3D it just all works natively it works on mobile and so a lot of what

[00:10:29] we do is just good software development with good UX and static technologies that allow you to

[00:10:34] do a hell of a lot you know just out of the box what sets us apart is this conversational

[00:10:40] I angle but you hinted at so the story behind that is you know having deployed a few of these

[00:10:44] configurators I would say the number one thing that I heard from our clients is besides what a great

[00:10:50] configurator you built us of course well you know this is kind of hard for people you know and it's not

[00:10:55] that our configurators I don't think are any more complex or more difficult than any others

[00:10:59] but when you look at the kinds of things that people are typically asked to do on an each shop

[00:11:05] they are really not that complicated and they're not that technical and by design so you know

[00:11:11] you look at a bunch of pictures you click on one you read the ballot product you click add to

[00:11:15] comment and you click pay but in your credit card whatever right like it's something that

[00:11:20] everybody's familiar with at this point even people who are maybe older or less technical

[00:11:25] or maybe have some kind of disability everybody can use those technologies and then suddenly

[00:11:30] you come out with something that's most close to a video game right like it's all 3D and there's tons

[00:11:35] of options and the options can be pretty technical so if you go back to that example by kitchen range

[00:11:40] you know how many people are actually able to recite the differences between gas and induction and

[00:11:45] walk the trade-offs are and there's a host of options in that product that are even more

[00:11:49] than a nickel than that you know and not everybody is a kitchen designer so as a result people start

[00:11:54] configuring and in many cases they get to a certain point in the configuration process and then they're just like

[00:12:00] a geostuck I need help and if that help is not forthcoming then I'm just going to give up

[00:12:05] and you know I'm going to pick up a phone and call the company in the best case

[00:12:08] so at least at least at least in sale or maybe I'm just going to think my business elsewhere

[00:12:13] so I was already noodling over that problem sort of 2022 and suddenly chat GBT appeared

[00:12:19] and for me it was a complete revelation even someone he studied on the science he's been following

[00:12:24] space I did not see that coming and I actually thought it was a hoax to first have a thought

[00:12:29] like I literally thought there's like a team of people somewhere and I like a boy along with

[00:12:33] you can we're quickly typing answers to all the questions I think we'll be well for me to convince

[00:12:37] myself okay this is real and and once I was convinced it's really I immediately recognize

[00:12:42] wow this has huge implications for our product and what we're doing because what people need is

[00:12:46] exactly that they need kind of that voice over their shoulder who's going to be there to help them

[00:12:50] when they need help so if I'm configuring a complex product and I don't really understand what

[00:12:54] options are I can ask if I need advice I'm like oh you know what I do when the problems with

[00:13:00] configuring something in an area usually it's like the first and last time you do it right so you

[00:13:04] don't know am I am I missing something really big you know maybe there's some super cool

[00:13:07] option I could choose but I just don't even know it exists but if there's no one there to advise me

[00:13:11] then I'm not able to gain the confidence that I need to to confidently make that purchase

[00:13:18] so the I can fill in the gaps with that as well so what we essentially done is to add that

[00:13:24] kind of conversational interface to the configurators so you have the traditional interface which is

[00:13:29] great for you know if you want to drag some being and send me this to the right there's

[00:13:33] no better way than just when you're now now set it in drag away but if you want to ask questions

[00:13:37] or get advice or get guided through the process in some way then that's where the traditional

[00:13:43] interfaces kind of fall down and that's where the conversational side could jump in and help you out

[00:13:48] in a way similar to what a human designer a salesperson would do in the fix and mortar world

[00:13:54] and as time goes on there is this increasing belief that conversational AI is destined to

[00:14:00] almost reshape a commerce and some other industries as well but I'm curious how do you see

[00:14:05] this technology transforming things like the online shopping experience not just for retailers but for

[00:14:11] consumers too. Well I think in general that conversational UI is going to completely

[00:14:18] reshape how we work with suffering general I don't think this is a small thing and no it hasn't

[00:14:24] got the glove but this is not one of them and you know the reason being that it just makes sense

[00:14:30] right like we are used to interacting with other people that's what we learn to do is we're growing

[00:14:37] up that's what our brains have evolved to do and so it's sad and so reason if we are given the

[00:14:42] opportunity through more basic knowledge you to do that with software as well that's what we're

[00:14:46] going to gravitate towards so I think that's kind of a given that's happening you know along

[00:14:50] it's going to take exactly what the steps are remain to be seen but it's a trend that is going

[00:14:54] to pan out of the long-determined and then when you look at e-commerce well it's it's software

[00:14:59] and I think it's important to view it that way you know if you're making an e-shop you've got

[00:15:03] all the same considerations that you would have when you're developing any other kind of software

[00:15:08] you have to do good UX works you have to have a great user experience that is appealing to people

[00:15:12] that they can understand easily that's efficient to use for regular users but easy to learn and

[00:15:17] discover for for new users so it's as the reason if you buy into the premise of the conversation

[00:15:23] that UI is going to have a massive impact on software interfaces in general then it's certainly

[00:15:27] going to have a massive impact on e-commerce and specifically I think sort of the guiding light

[00:15:33] for me is how would we do this in the bricks and mortar work what are people you see what are

[00:15:39] people like you know we've had centuries and probably millennia until all those practices where

[00:15:45] walk into a store and the sales person if they're good kind of knows what questions to ask you

[00:15:50] knows where to shut up and let you talk knows when to jump in and provide you with guidance

[00:15:54] and it just hasn't been possible to do that on e-shops up till now because I think as most

[00:16:00] listeners will probably recognize when companies have tried to put chat bots in place that are

[00:16:04] based on all the technologies they're just not very good and it can be not only kind of neutral but really

[00:16:11] negative when you put up something in front of someone that offers the promise of giving them

[00:16:15] guidance and a more human experience but it doesn't work well it's frustrating you feel like

[00:16:22] you know you're wasting your time and you'd be better off without it well now with the

[00:16:28] generative AI and large language models it's very clear that it's a completely different

[00:16:34] ball-wise I mean they're just incredible so now we finally have that ability to replace the

[00:16:39] additionally commerce interface with something that is more human closer to what people

[00:16:43] use to closer to what are the vaulted over those millennia to make it as convenient and pleasant

[00:16:48] for people as possible to shop on the consumer side and make it as you know easy for companies to sell

[00:16:56] and across sell and to upsell and all those good things on the on the vendor side so that's really

[00:17:02] the evolution of I see is that while the offline and online buying experiences have been very

[00:17:08] different until now I expect them to start converging and I expect the thanks to AI for the online

[00:17:13] experience to get much closer to what people are familiar with in the offline world.

[00:17:18] And one of the things that stood out to me when I was doing a bit of research on it is how this

[00:17:21] configurator that you've developed here is powered by open AI and also handle casual queries such as

[00:17:28] I need a kitchen range for hosting big barbecue parties for example so can you tell me a bit more about

[00:17:35] chat well integrates with this real time expert feedback to customize products on the fly because I

[00:17:41] suspect there be a lot of business leaders listening and a few light bulb moments going off here but

[00:17:45] could you share a bit more about that. Yeah sure I mean it's really like to a large degree it

[00:17:49] really does seem like magic it's I still will sometimes sit down in my couch and play with

[00:17:56] which actually BT and have conversations with it because I continue to be blown away by how good it is

[00:18:02] much of the shagrin of my girlfriend who thinks it's ridiculous but that makes it possible to do

[00:18:10] the kind of citizen to get things that you're talking about so there's multiple

[00:18:13] aspects to it first of all there's all that kind of world knowledge that is baked into the LLM itself

[00:18:19] so we didn't have to tell it what a kitchen range is it knows that it's you know ingested who knows how many

[00:18:26] massive volumes of at a bite or whatever of data and to encompass everything and that gives it a

[00:18:32] really broad range of knowledge about the real world so you know sort of big barbecue party is

[00:18:37] it knows you know the difference between infection and and gas cooking that I the example I used

[00:18:42] earlier we didn't have the talent that it it just knows it so you're already working off of various

[00:18:46] solid foundation where it's like you've got this intelligent thing that knows stuff and you just

[00:18:52] have to kind of guide it in the right direction so the next part of that is to kind of explain to

[00:19:00] what you want it to do for a particular use case so part of that is giving it the I said it has a

[00:19:06] pan so we say you are a bottom your job is to help people configure a kitchen range or configure

[00:19:10] some conclusions or configure a ferville and you know give us some examples and sort of steps on how

[00:19:17] to do that part of it is telling it what it isn't so you know you don't want the bought probably

[00:19:23] dance of the question when somebody asks it you know do you think I should vote for in the

[00:19:26] US presidential election right like you know anyone who want to go there and that's actually

[00:19:30] there is not to be relatively easy to do see tell you know just like there only have to stuff

[00:19:34] that's outside your area of expertise and when you ask it something that'll say listen I'm here

[00:19:39] to help you configure your your burglar or your furniture or you're still railing so let's get back

[00:19:46] and so that's the the so-called system prompt right so anybody who's used chat GPT is familiar with

[00:19:51] that what you type into the chat window is basically a prompt and we give it at first part

[00:19:56] it gives it all the basis of how it should act and then the final thing is separate data file

[00:20:03] or database that gives it the information that's specific to the task at hand so it might

[00:20:08] know a lot of jitterics stuff about kitchen ranges for example but it probably doesn't know about

[00:20:13] this specific kitchen ranges from that specific vendor so you give it a bunch of product

[00:20:20] information information about the company everything that you wanted to know and it's able to

[00:20:26] efficiently retrieve that information in order to respond intelligently and one thing that we've

[00:20:32] observed by the way that's really interesting a couple of things so you know first of all when we

[00:20:35] started working on this and it might sound like okay you know I've these chat GPT it's really smart

[00:20:40] hard can this be it was pretty hard because it is difficult to always get the the bought

[00:20:48] do you want in every situation and they're good at something something's a really bad at

[00:20:52] something so I think people of experience you know it can be amazing how well you know not only

[00:20:56] can it spit out text on a specific topic you know in a pretty coaching way that it can do it as

[00:21:02] you know in Lyman couple it's or in the style of or just Hemingway or whatever or Snoop Dogg

[00:21:07] you know and it's like wow that is absolutely amazing but then when you ask it to add 2 plus 2 it

[00:21:12] doesn't or makes a mistake so math is one of those examples of things where it's not very good

[00:21:17] following a set process this is an example of one of those things that it's not a good at so at

[00:21:22] the beginning we tried to cram all that logic into the the system prompt that I mentioned so

[00:21:27] we have this massive instructions at the beginning where we tried to explain everything to it

[00:21:33] it would make mistakes because it was just too much for it to take on board or we were asking the

[00:21:37] language model to do things that it really wasn't thickly good at and so what we realized

[00:21:42] at a certain point was let's just ask the the LLM the AI portion to do what it's really good at

[00:21:49] which is understanding user intent it's incredible at that right like it's incredible at understanding

[00:21:53] even when it's phrased in pretty subtle ways it knows what you want when you say I need a

[00:22:02] lot we don't have to do anything and it's also terrific at generating you know correct

[00:22:07] understandable natural sounding text or even voice so you want the AI doing that but you probably

[00:22:13] don't want it doing for example figuring out why your kitchen range is whether it exceeds

[00:22:17] the allowed width they are good at that so we started off loading a lot of that logic into more

[00:22:22] traditional code and just having the AI called I code when it needed it and that was a huge

[00:22:32] amount of manageable size allowed the AI to do what it's good at and then it gives us

[00:22:37] absolute flexibility you think that a deterministic way that needs to be deterministic right like

[00:22:41] if the price exceeds or limited exceeds or limit is no, if I see this to that so that's probably

[00:22:46] something you want to check this using traditional software code and the finally another interesting

[00:22:51] thing that we noticed is that and people ask me regulating where how do you stop the the

[00:22:57] hallucinating because we all know that's a problem with the current generation of

[00:23:02] large language models and what we found really is that it you know tries to give you the best

[00:23:08] answer it can be on the information it has and if it has the information it typically will give you

[00:23:13] great answer that's true and accurate but if it doesn't have the information it's a great

[00:23:17] and makes it stop up and that's where the hallucinations come in so the important thing is

[00:23:23] to give it all the vital information that it needs in order to give accurate answers so we've

[00:23:27] been very careful with a various configurators we built to put in comprehensive formation about

[00:23:32] the company and the products and then it's been set out accurately so it's a combination of

[00:23:37] all those learnings I think that has led to the really quite impressive result that we've

[00:23:42] done now you made so many great points there about keeping it from going off-skrip,

[00:23:48] going political nobody wants their brand to be in the headlines but going wrong and also

[00:23:54] the hallucination thing as well and I also read the high end retimes are actually already using

[00:23:59] your configurator this is not something for the future it's out there being used right now and I'm

[00:24:04] not sure if you can name any names but what kind of feedback have you received from these earlier

[00:24:09] how is it ultimately impacting their sales and customer satisfaction because it's incredibly exciting

[00:24:15] tech but I think the most business leaders it's what is this doing for us what problems it's

[00:24:19] solving how is it generally in business value and all those other metrics that they may be following so

[00:24:24] what are the earlier doctors saying about this yeah well I mean just a use example of that

[00:24:29] kitchen range manufacturer that I've been talking about which has got out to the apari design

[00:24:35] their USB's company despite the French-Escouting name and they were the first customer for us

[00:24:41] to integrate this new conversation with UI and so to configure it in so it's kind of further along

[00:24:46] and therefore you've had the most kind of runway to observe how people react to it it is still

[00:24:51] pretty early days but what I can definitely say for sure is that there is a real while reaction

[00:24:56] when people try out the conversation with UI even though we maybe just beating in this technology

[00:25:02] and we're used to it and I use chat GPT every day I think it's become an essential tool for me but

[00:25:06] some people don't and I think they are still pretty amazed when they see what it's capable of doing so

[00:25:12] on the one hand yeah when you show them you think you can say to it when my kitchen smell when

[00:25:18] I'm cooking and it'll immediately say whoa why don't you add a hood you know like without even

[00:25:22] missing a beat it understand exactly what you're getting at has a very targeted and helpful

[00:25:27] suggestion to give to you and that was people away it cuts both ways though because people aren't

[00:25:33] necessarily expecting it to be that good and one of the things that we're working actively on is

[00:25:38] overcoming those preconceived notions because people have used a lot of really you know crappy chat

[00:25:44] bots in the past that we're just bad and kind of tried to lead you down and predefined

[00:25:50] to computational pathways that weren't where you want to go so it can be tricky to get past that

[00:25:58] and even get people to try the chat because they don't make sure I took the be good once you start

[00:26:02] using it there they're below the way but I think that's something that in the relatively

[00:26:06] short term is going to happen just by itself because I absolutely expect that we're going to see

[00:26:11] more and more of these conversation interfaces and that quite quickly will train people

[00:26:17] to have a different expectation when they use them because they're going to see how good they are

[00:26:22] in terms of the business and I'd say I mean it is early days but I think what we expect

[00:26:27] it is starting to end out in that we're seeing people getting through the configuration process

[00:26:33] more often whereas before maybe they were stuck and they didn't know what to do and they just

[00:26:38] abandon the process now they have recourse they can go to this conversation the UI and they can

[00:26:41] ask questions and then get help it even tells you how to use the traditional

[00:26:46] figure interface and still there so if you're like how do I remove that oven it can do it for

[00:26:50] you or it can tell you you know click on that part of the interface and select this so

[00:26:54] overall it's just a way to make sure that people don't get stuck then they finish the process

[00:26:59] and that leads to more conversions because if they get through the configuration process

[00:27:02] then much more low to be the buy something. And although it is early days it really gets me thinking

[00:27:08] about what happens when this becomes the standard expectation because people are not going to

[00:27:12] visit other sites with crappy chat box so I really think you're onto something now but when you

[00:27:18] look at conversational UI do you think it will eventually represent the future of human

[00:27:23] computer interaction especially in the context of a commerce do you see it becoming

[00:27:27] the standard expectation as it progresses more and more such and bracelet technology.

[00:27:33] I absolutely think so I mean I always kind of turn to science fiction when thinking about this because

[00:27:38] there's some pretty smart people when you have the artsy sea clerks and the world those are people

[00:27:44] who are thinking decades in advance what is that analogy going to look like at some future point

[00:27:50] and when they tried to show how people would be interacting with computers in the future it's

[00:27:55] always conversational UI basically like on Star Trek you know what they do they say computer set

[00:28:00] phases to stun or whatever. When you look at Ironman and his lab Tony Stark he's got his AI

[00:28:06] next to him that is providing like this major enhancement to his abilities just by allowing

[00:28:11] into chat with this infinitely intelligent agent who has access to all the world's information

[00:28:17] and so yeah I think that it is inevitable that these technologies are going to rep than a huge

[00:28:24] part of the way we interact with computers. I should say I don't think that it's going to be only

[00:28:30] that they're definitely our cases where like looking at a graph is going to get you

[00:28:35] useful information and you know through your eyes and into your brain a lot faster than having

[00:28:38] any only described the graph to you right so I don't think that traditional kinds of visualizations

[00:28:46] and ways of interacting with computers are going to go away completely but I think the

[00:28:50] conversation aspect is going to be the most important way that we interact with software

[00:28:58] another example before he conversation is just software so I think all the things I say apply

[00:29:03] equally to some productivity software if you're making a PowerPoint but also to eat commerce

[00:29:07] when you're on a website and you're trying to buy something and I also think that voice is going

[00:29:12] to be a major driver of this we've already seen advances happening there where the voice interactions

[00:29:18] are smoother and more fluid and so to the extent that a barrier to adoption right now it's just

[00:29:25] that people don't like typing they don't like reading I think that we're going to see acceleration

[00:29:30] in this trend when using voice becomes more predominant as an overcourtious x i 2 i i must

[00:29:37] talk about the flip side and the fact that yeah the AI boom's going to bring so many promises

[00:29:42] and opportunity is but also threats too so what are your thoughts on any potential risks associated

[00:29:48] with that watch by the AI adoption throughout e-commerce and how do you address some of these concerns

[00:29:54] I would imagine something that's equally a close to your heart too yeah and I'm pretty boring

[00:30:00] on this point I have to admit right the AI crowd talks about p-dume i guess you're probably

[00:30:06] familiar with it but people aren't you know it's like talking to somebody thinks about AI and saying

[00:30:11] you know what do you think is the percentage stance that these are going to get you know so intelligent

[00:30:15] that they're going to rise up and kill us all basically and and some people are pretty pessimistic about

[00:30:21] I think they might have watched many terminated movies but yeah people are like oh about 70% and I think

[00:30:26] that's absurd personally I mean it's is false speculation at this point but I am not going to say

[00:30:31] there's no risk of that happening but I think it's very very low like in a low percentage so when you

[00:30:36] talk about threats and risk yeah I'm not worried about a sky net I'm not worried about the machines

[00:30:41] rising up and an overthrowing us and in general I think there's a lot more upside then and downside

[00:30:47] the one thing I would say is that um that I do think is a real risk is misinformation

[00:30:53] and you know obviously it's a lot easier within AI to generate a lot of false facts what

[00:30:59] unquote facts and put them out there that it is without that technology and it applies to e-commerce

[00:31:06] as well and it can be intentional and not intentional and I think you know the real biggest

[00:31:09] risk is just that you know somebody might say does your product do this and that and the other thing

[00:31:15] the AI gets a wrong and says yes it does that and we've already seen some cases in the news is

[00:31:21] you know amusing but maybe for the vendors not so amusing where they've had a bot say something

[00:31:25] that wasn't true and then they'd been out legally accountable for that. So yeah that's it that is

[00:31:30] a real risk and as I mentioned earlier I think first of all these models are improving and one of the

[00:31:35] big improvements for example between GPT 3.5 which was the one that opened AI announced back in November

[00:31:41] 2022 I believe and then GPT 4 which is the current version and came a few months after and is that

[00:31:47] the newer generation is um it based on who's named but they do it a lot less so I think it's

[00:31:52] reasonable to expect if you two generations will get better and better there's I've seen some academic

[00:31:55] papers out there that talk about how to make these models a little bit more aware of when they don't

[00:32:01] know something so that they say I don't know instead of just making something up and then of course yeah

[00:32:05] give it all the information it's burdened and that it needs and that I think is the best guarantee

[00:32:08] that it's not going to mess something up and tell you something that isn't true. Yeah completely agree

[00:32:14] with you on the P-DOMAS stuff but I must admit I am actually my best whenever I'm talking to

[00:32:18] Claude or chat GPT I'm always nice using please and thank you just just in case they flick the

[00:32:24] switch one time. I thought you were going to see you're starting up on toilet paper and bottle

[00:32:28] the water but well that if we look ahead any further advancements in conversation AI or e-commerce

[00:32:38] that excite you but you want to jump out about it and all that anything you're monitoring

[00:32:41] and how are you preparing to stay at the forefront of these innovations too. I think one trend

[00:32:47] of e-commerce as nothing really to do with AI but it is very significant is this trend towards

[00:32:51] headless or composably commerce I think pretty much refer to the same trend depends on

[00:32:57] the US and that's all about making e-commerce platforms more modular so traditionally you'd be

[00:33:03] getting any commerce platform from some big vendor like SAP and they bake everything into it

[00:33:08] the back end of front end is shopping car the surge everything would be coming from one vendor

[00:33:12] and that makes it difficult to innovate right because not everybody can get in and do everything

[00:33:16] and compete with those big platform players and more recent types of e-commerce platforms

[00:33:22] commerce tools is one that's raised to either are much more modular they allow you to kind of plug

[00:33:27] and best debris components to do different things and that's a really important trend for us as

[00:33:31] well because as we start to innovate around certain parts of the e-commerce experience it gives us

[00:33:34] a lot more flexibility to say you know keep your shopify shop or keep your uh the gentle

[00:33:40] implementation but you know here's just a way to improve a particular part of that so I think

[00:33:44] that modularity trend is something that is very conducive to innovation. When we talk about AI

[00:33:50] even though I said you know I think these models are going to keep improving and that problems

[00:33:54] like hallucinations are going to get better which I certainly do believe I do think that progress

[00:34:00] is going to be slower than some people expect and that's just because as somebody who's been

[00:34:04] observing technology for decades it's what always happens you know people and new technology

[00:34:09] comes out and people get super excited about it and then you know some of you go for nothing

[00:34:14] to GPD4 and oh my god you know in a year they're going to be you know picking you know over

[00:34:18] every profession that humans can do and it's you know we're going to be you know buying on the beach or

[00:34:26] enslaved by the machines or something you know by this time next year and I think that's that's nonsense

[00:34:31] you know the short-term progress tends to be slower than we expect even when the long-term

[00:34:36] progress is maybe probably all what we can possibly imagine so you know let's keep our feet in the ground

[00:34:42] but I do think that we will see slow steady improvement and that will lead to the AI if we talk

[00:34:48] about e-commerce specifically you know the AI will take over more of those responsibilities

[00:34:53] well you know right now I see people trying stuff like just tell me what you want and it'll

[00:34:58] find it for you Amazon has some interesting projects in that area I don't think it's realistic

[00:35:03] with current technology for just just Neil and find exactly what you want you know right at the

[00:35:08] box it's it's a native of the process but maybe in the future it's going to be a

[00:35:14] stir quicker process to getting to the product you watch is because the eyes are going to get

[00:35:18] smarter and better and then there's things that are in the penit of the large language models

[00:35:25] that are related to the AI that I think are going to be very significant as well

[00:35:29] we're already seeing things happening with augmented reality with virtual triumph so yeah I

[00:35:35] think in the not too too distant future the e-commerce experience is going to be much more like I'm

[00:35:41] seeing the product I say one in a real kind of environment where I can imagine using it and I'm

[00:35:46] able to just chat with that AI environment and have it like who didn't quickly on the on the

[00:35:53] product I want so I think very very different from the e-commerce experience we're used to today

[00:35:58] and fast to sound top about I think you know it was one of the motivations for wanting to get into

[00:36:04] this market early because we were starting to experiment with the the chat GPT API and our

[00:36:09] configurator framework I you know early 2023 it was really only a couple months after over the AI

[00:36:14] announced the public release of chat GPT so we're in there early and that allows us to

[00:36:20] have actual read the deployments that are out there and people are using them we do a lot of stuff

[00:36:24] with analytics trying to measure how people are using it what's working well what's not working

[00:36:28] well what they are using what they aren't using so yeah new technology capabilities appear I think

[00:36:33] we're going to want to implement them as quickly as possible and be very willing to experiment

[00:36:39] take risks but I'm out there and then measure and I think that's the best way to stay on top of

[00:36:42] the technology trend. 100% with you and as you were saying at the beginning of the answer I think

[00:36:48] there was Bill Gates that said most people over estimate what they can do in one year and

[00:36:52] underestimate what we can do in 10 years time so incredibly exciting times ahead I suspect

[00:36:58] and thank you so much for sitting down with me and sharing your story and the great work that you're

[00:37:02] doing I'm going to see if it's something we can do for you now because some of the biggest names in

[00:37:06] business, BC funding and tech have either been guests or possibly might listen to this podcast so

[00:37:11] is that a person you'd love to have a private breakfast or lunch with at will I hear or

[00:37:16] shake my just here this but let's see what we can manifest and I think we're going to

[00:37:21] be. Alright let's give it a shot I mean it's obvious names ring to mind I've always been kind of

[00:37:25] fanboy of the five years I was reading Bill Gates biographies you know back when I was a teenager

[00:37:32] basically Steve Jobs even Elon Musk who might be a controversial figure but I you know very much

[00:37:38] despite the work he's done but I think you know there's probably a little bit of a reach

[00:37:43] one in this face to mind for me would be would be bedded at devins I don't know if you're familiar

[00:37:47] with him but he's a very well-naked tech fundate he used to work for Andreessen R. Whits the the VC

[00:37:54] and he had a really great newsletter that breaks down the tech news of the day and for the past two

[00:37:59] or three years he has been talking a lot about AI like everybody and have some really great insights

[00:38:04] so I think it'll be really fun to sit down with someone that knowledgeable who talks to that many

[00:38:10] people who are experts in the field and just kind of get his state on conversation with you

[00:38:14] why in the work we're doing and also to maybe try to convince him that that is the use case

[00:38:18] that is going to be this is going to bring large language models and gender to be I into the

[00:38:22] mainstream because he's someone who think like a lot of people often says you know all this stuff

[00:38:27] is really cool and it's impressive and it makes it great demo but is it really useful what is it

[00:38:31] going to be useful for we don't know and I think I know you know we're doing this right now so

[00:38:35] to learn from him and his perspective on the tech market and on AI in particular but also maybe

[00:38:43] just get his day can I convince him that we figured out what the use case for AI is

[00:38:48] well if Benedict Evans is listening or if there is a 60 degree of separation going on if there was

[00:38:54] a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of Benedict Evans please tell him this is

[00:38:59] cool to action let's see what we could make up and well so that out into the eighth and let's see

[00:39:04] what happens but exactly let's do breakfast and everyone listening just want to find out more about

[00:39:11] you your team have you anything we talked about today what do you like to point everyone

[00:39:16] right well I think the best place is LinkedIn I'm pretty active there and in particular I have a news

[00:39:21] letter where I write regularly about conversational UI and about ecommerce it's called

[00:39:28] conversialize supposed to be a kind of portman to or on conversational and commercialize

[00:39:33] conversialize and so yeah I love it if people would check it out subscribe to it like everything

[00:39:37] I post share with all the people you know and look forward to hearing from you also well

[00:39:42] all of the links to everything there including where they can sign up and I just love chatting with you

[00:39:47] today about at least first 3D product configuring of it's equipped with a highly trained AI chatbot

[00:39:53] doesn't go rogue and and how it's just simply embedded directly into a retail as website

[00:39:58] and ultimately helping shoppers design those dream custom products from kitchen ranges and

[00:40:04] season holiday decor or through these chat GPT style prompts I think it's so important

[00:40:09] and what you're doing here and I think it's showing real business value so on the blog post that

[00:40:15] I associate with this podcast I'm going to put a link to the video a video of the demo so

[00:40:21] at that interested how people visualize it so go check that out but more than anything that just

[00:40:26] thank you for bringing this topic to life to thank you the others real pleasure to speak to you

[00:40:31] wow listening to Matt there I think the potential of conversational AI to transform ecommerce is

[00:40:37] immense from simplifying complex configurations to creating personalized shopping experiences that

[00:40:44] mimic the best aspects of install interactions and yeah as with any new technology they are all

[00:40:51] and just to overcome and questions to address so over to you listening you've heard for me

[00:40:57] you've heard from Matt today a quick question for you now will conversation AI reshape the future

[00:41:03] of ecommerce or are we still just scratching the surface of what's possible

[00:41:08] look at your thoughts on this especially who you think will benefit most from this technology

[00:41:14] too and if there are any potential roadblocks that you foresee whatever it is email me

[00:41:21] tech blogger i to at rock.com twitter linked in instagram at neol see yous but that's it for today so

[00:41:27] a big thank you for listening as always and until next time don't be a stranger