Target said it will launch Store Companion, a generative AI chatbot designed to help employees boost customer experiences, across its 2,000 stores by August.
The retailer didn't reveal the vendors involved with Store Companion other than it said it designed the chatbot. Target was a reference customer at Google Cloud Next. Store Companion was trained on frequently asked question and process documents from store teams.
Store Companion is built to answer questions workers get on the job, offer coaching and support management. Target said it will continue to test and launch more genAI applications throughout 2024.
In a statement, Target CIO Brett Craig said "genAI is helping us accelerate the rate of innovation across our operations."
Walmart, Target highlight intersection of supply chain, customer experience
Store Companion will be available as an app on employees handheld devices to answer questions about processes and procedures. Employees can ask multiple questions from credit card applications to restarting cash registers and procedures in a power outage. Target added that Store Companion will also enable seasonal workers to ramp up quickly.
Other details about Store Companion include:
- Target is piloting Store Companion in about 400 stores.
- The rollout took six months.
- The model was tweaked based on employee feedback and experiences.
Target said on its first quarter earnings call that it was using generative AI to drive digital experiences and enable personalization.
Speaking on the earnings call, Christina Hennington, Chief Growth Officer at Target, outlined the genAI efforts, which include guided search, product display enhancements and personalization. She said:
"Our team's work to remodel our digital platforms is paying multiple dividends. Newly developed generative AI and personalization capabilities are expanding scope and reach of what we can offer our guests in terms of product recommendations, search results and more.
We recently engaged in a pilot with one of our biggest vendors to test our latest personalization capabilities with guests shopping our personal care categories. We're very encouraged by early test results, which showed a nearly three times lift in conversion rates from personalized promotions versus mass offers, including higher sales lift across the rest of the category as well.
In addition to driving more personalization, we're also focused on growing relevance, particularly where there may be opportunities in our current online assortment."
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