Augmenting In-House Innovation with Startups: Generative AI

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a game-changer in various industries, including the retail industry. With its ability to create original content and generate solutions autonomously, many of the retail b2b startups in the Microsoft for Startups portfolio are incorporating generative AI into their solutions. This technology enables retailers to improve their processes, enhance customer experiences, and optimize sales, ultimately boosting their bottom line. From personalized recommendations to inventory management, generative AI is transforming the retail industry by providing innovative and efficient solutions. In this blog post, I will attempt to categorize some of the startups we are working with into different areas (many of them span multiple categories):

Marketing:

The emergence of Generative AI has revolutionized the marketing industry by providing powerful tools to retailers for customer engagement and conversion. Generative AI in marketing is a subset of artificial intelligence that involves the use of algorithms to create content, messaging, and visuals that imitate human creativity. In the retail industry, Generative AI is rapidly transforming the way brands market themselves by providing personalized recommendations, creating hyper-targeted ad campaigns, and predicting future customer behavior. This technology has enabled retailers to streamline their marketing efforts, drive customer engagement, and ultimately boost sales. Here are some Startups focused on Marketing:

CIPIO.ai : Consumers tend to rely on their friends, family, and community for inspiration and recommendations when making purchasing decisions, more so than any other source. To better connect with these communities, smart brands are adopting more effective marketing strategies. CIPIO.ai, a leading platform for Community Commerce Marketing (CCM), empowers brands to create those crucial connections. By leveraging the power of CIPIO.ai's Generative AI technology, brands can significantly reduce the time and costs associated with creating social media content on a large scale. The result is not just any content, but content that is specifically optimized to outperform competitors.

Contact Center:

In the context of customer support in retail, generative AI has the potential to revolutionize the way businesses interact with their customers. By creating chatbots and virtual assistants that can understand and respond to natural language, generative AI can help retailers provide fast and efficient customer support, while also improving the overall customer experience. Here are some of the Startups:

Quiq : Quiq's conversational AI has the capability to engage with customers proactively by analyzing their identity, location, and actions, all without requiring the intervention of an agent. In addition to this, Quiq's conversational AI is equipped with a comprehensive suite of tools for generating insights, such as natural language processing (NLP) training and labeling. This results in Quiq's conversations becoming increasingly intelligent over time. Moreover, Quiq's AI-powered conversations can drive up resolution rates to an average of 80% while reducing the cost per interaction.

Thread : Thread is a unique Service Collaboration Platform that enhances communication and collaboration between IT service providers and customers. With Thread, service providers can offer assistance to their customers through various platforms such as Slack, Teams, mobile or desktop. Customers can conveniently request service or support by starting new threads at any time and from anywhere. Thread facilitates the collaboration of service providers across tenants, enabling them to work together and resolve issues promptly. The introduction of Service CoPilot automates some of the tedious tasks that service providers dislike such as writing time entries, thanks to OpenAI GPT3.

SleekFlow ｜ 整合行动通讯 客户沟通团队平台 : SleekFlow is an omnichannel messaging software solution trusted by top enterprises. It is a social commerce and messaging platform that enables businesses to reach and converse with customers faster on social chats, live chat or SMS. With SleekFlow, businesses can sell, market, advertise or support seamlessly through WhatsApp, WeChat, Messenger, and more. SleekFlow serves over 5000+ multinational companies worldwide across industries.

Employee Empowerment:

With generative AI, businesses can automate repetitive tasks and provide more personalized services to employees. This technology can help companies enhance their employee experience, increase engagement, and improve overall productivity. From generating personalized training programs to automating HR tasks, generative AI is proving to be a valuable tool in the employee service industry. In this era of digital transformation, generative AI is opening up new possibilities for businesses to provide better services to their employees. Here are some startups focused on Employee Service:

Moveworks : The Moveworks generative AI platform has been designed to enhance employee productivity by utilizing natural language to surface information and automate tasks. It provides businesses with a conversational interface that seamlessly integrates with various systems, including Microsoft, Workday, and Salesforce. This platform leverages GPT-class machine learning models to learn and understand the specific language used within an organization, which enables it to solve thousands of use cases efficiently. By leveraging this technology, enterprises can streamline their operations and improve employee experiences by eliminating repetitive tasks and providing instant access to relevant information.

Compliance and Contract Management:

Generative AI is a rapidly evolving technology that has the potential to revolutionize compliance and contract management. By utilizing deep learning algorithms, generative AI can analyze vast amounts of data and generate insights and recommendations that are accurate, consistent, and unbiased. With the increasing complexity and volume of regulatory requirements and contractual obligations, compliance and contract management professionals are under immense pressure to ensure that their organizations stay compliant while mitigating risks and reducing costs. Generative AI can help streamline these processes, improve decision-making, and enhance overall organizational efficiency. Here are some startups working on Compliance and Contract Management:

dSilo.AI : dSilo is an enterprise AI-startup that has been experiencing rapid growth, with a focus on helping companies to reduce costs and streamline compliance at scale. Their platform is powered by deep learning AI and includes patent-pending technology for contracts and documents abstraction, as well as smart workflows and insights generation. The platform is designed to allow for the contextually-extracted analysis of documents such as contracts, invoices, and purchase orders, with minimal human intervention required. Additionally, it enables the automated detection of contract value leakage, such as missed discounts or trade promotional rebates, and helps to manage compliance and risk.

Customer Engagement:

With the ability to learn and mimic human behavior, generative AI technology can be used to create personalized and engaging experiences for customers. By analyzing customer data, generative AI can generate targeted messages, ads, and even product recommendations that resonate with individual preferences and needs. As a result, businesses are able to create a stronger connection with their customers, enhance customer engagement, and ultimately increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. In this era of data-driven marketing, generative AI is becoming an increasingly essential tool for businesses looking to stay ahead of the competition. Here are some startups enabling customer engagement using generative ai:

DeepBrain AI : With Deepbrain AI's innovative AI-driven customer service solutions, they have revolutionized the way businesses interact with their customers. Their digital humans are a prime example of this technological advancement, offering unparalleled simulated human-like interactions in response to natural language queries. These digital humans not only provide a seamless customer service experience but also have the ability to learn and adapt to customers' needs over time.

Market Intelligence:

Generative AI has become a game-changer in the world of market intelligence, providing businesses with valuable insights and analysis that were previously impossible to obtain. By utilizing advanced machine learning algorithms, generative AI models can create vast amounts of data, helping businesses make informed decisions and stay ahead of the competition. With its ability to generate predictions and recommendations based on complex datasets, generative AI is transforming the way companies gather market intelligence, and unlocking new possibilities for growth and success. In this context, understanding the potential of generative AI and its implications for market intelligence is crucial for businesses looking to stay ahead of the curve in today's competitive marketplace.

Commerce.AI : Commerce.AI is a company that automates product decisions using AI that can read, hear, see and understand unstructured consumer feedback at scale. It offers various products and solutions for different industries and use cases, such as Service AI, Product AI, Market AI, Voice Survey, API & Data.

Computer Vision:

Generative AI and computer vision are two of the most exciting fields in artificial intelligence (AI) today. Generative AI involves creating complex and realistic outputs, such as images or videos, from scratch, using algorithms and models that have been trained on vast amounts of data. Meanwhile, computer vision is focused on teaching machines to interpret and understand visual information, allowing them to identify objects, recognize faces, and even navigate complex environments. Together, these two fields have enormous potential to transform industries ranging from healthcare and entertainment to transportation and manufacturing. In this context, it is crucial to understand the latest advancements and applications of generative AI and computer vision to stay ahead of the curve in this rapidly evolving technological landscape.

Chooch : Chooch.AI is an innovative company that has developed a powerful computer vision platform capable of detecting and interpreting visual elements in both videos and images. Its versatile solutions cater to a wide range of industries, including healthcare, security, media, geospatial, retail, and industrial. With a vision to create a world where AI vision is omnipresent and benefits everyone, Chooch.AI is at the forefront of the rapidly expanding field of computer vision. Chooch's ImageChat combines computer vision and large language models to provide deeper insights into images.?

Fashion Design:

Generative AI has been increasingly utilized in the field of fashion design in recent years, revolutionizing the way fashion is created and manufactured. Generative AI involves using machine learning algorithms to generate novel designs and patterns, which can be applied to various aspects of fashion design, from fabric selection to garment construction. This technology has opened up new opportunities for designers to create unique and personalized garments, while also streamlining the design process and reducing waste in the fashion industry. With the help of generative AI, fashion designers can push the boundaries of creativity and innovation, resulting in new and exciting fashion trends. Here are some startups driving innovation with Generative AI in the world of Fashion & Apparel:

Fashable : Fashable.AI is a visionary startup, boasting a remarkable generative AI toolkit for breathtaking and lifelike content. Its cutting-edge solutions include AI-generated models, on-demand generation, style prediction, and more. Beyond traditional fashion, Fashable.AI offers innovative solutions for metaverse and NFTs, AI-based collections, and circular economy. Its bold vision to transform digital content creation and have a positive impact on the industry is set to revolutionize fashion.

Skincare and Beauty:

With its ability to analyze vast amounts of data, this technology offers tailored recommendations for skincare products and treatments based on individual needs. By examining factors such as skin type, age, and specific concerns, generative AI algorithms can generate custom beauty regimens that optimize results. Moreover, virtual try-on capabilities enable users to experiment with different makeup looks, hairstyles, and even cosmetic procedures, empowering them to make confident decisions before committing to any physical changes. The integration of generative AI in the skincare and beauty industry has ushered in a new era of personalized self-care, empowering individuals to enhance their natural beauty while fostering a deeper understanding of their unique skin and beauty requirements.

Haut.AI : Haut.ai is an industry-leading global artificial intelligence company that specializes in skincare and longevity. By combining advanced deep learning techniques for machine vision, deep generative models for image synthesis, and natural language processing for personalized recommendations, Haut.ai is able to provide cutting-edge solutions for the skincare industry.

Haut.AI has introduced SkinGPT , a groundbreaking generative AI technology designed to model skin conditions and simulate their effects on input image data. This innovative solution allows users to upload their photos and use AI to visualize how their skin may change over time with the use of specific skincare products. SkinGPT enables the first-ever virtual try-on for skincare, providing photorealistic simulations supported by scientific evidence. By bridging the gap between consumer expectations and product outcomes, SkinGPT helps educate customers about the long-term cosmetic benefits of skincare products. The tool is particularly valuable for beauty brands and retailers, as it can be integrated into e-commerce platforms to enhance the consumer experience. Haut.AI's product-specific technology ensures accuracy by simulating the clinical claims of given skincare products. Additionally, SkinGPT raises awareness about the detrimental effects of environmental factors on the skin, such as allergens, sun exposure, and pollution. By visualizing the long-term consequences of these factors, SkinGPT encourages individuals to take preventive measures for healthier skin.

Data Insights:

Generative AI powered by Natural Language Processing (NLP) presents a transformative approach to extracting valuable insights and patterns from vast amounts of data. By leveraging NLP techniques, such as language modeling and text generation, generative AI models can analyze textual data and unveil hidden patterns, trends, and correlations. This enables organizations to gain a deeper understanding of customer sentiments, preferences, and behaviors, unlocking actionable intelligence for decision-making, personalized marketing strategies, and enhanced customer experiences. With its ability to process and comprehend human language at scale, generative AI with NLP is poised to revolutionize data analysis and provide valuable business intelligence in an increasingly data-driven world.

Clobotics Retail : Clobotics combines visual data and AI to transform retail, delivering actionable insights, operational optimization, and business growth while enabling data-driven decision-making, improved product visibility, and an enhanced customer experience. Clobotics specializes in retail execution and merchandising optimization, empowering sales functions, while also offering comprehensive analysis of promotion, pricing results, and trends to support marketing efforts. The cutting-edge technology enables precise monitoring of product placement, shelf availability, and planogram compliance in stores.By automating the collection and analysis of visual data, Clobotics empowers retailers and CPGs to make data-driven decisions, enhance product visibility, and elevate the overall customer experience.

Partner with Innovative Startups:

To remain competitive and meet the demands of their customers, retailers are actively innovating. Utilizing startup solutions can enhance and expedite this process. The Startup ecosystem can help augment in-house innovation for brands and retailers. Please reach out to me if you'd like to meet with startups and/or explore our startup portfolio.