Gen AI Transforming Commerce- "Learning Intelligent Fuzzy Logic Conversational" Commerce Ecosystems.

Wishing all a Happy 2024 and beyond. Just like invention of the wheel, newtons laws of physics, internal combustion engines, the first silicon, radio waves & telephony, airplane and many more, Gen AI is a life altering development driven by the power of silicon, data, neural nets and more. When machines can learn, evolve and communicate in Human language we are talking about an alternate silicon species.

Finally, Wall-E, Robocop, Lieutenant Commander Data ( “Star Trek”) ,?T-800, Model 101 (“Terminator 2: Judgment Day”) are all real. They understand Human language, learn, become wiser, adapt and communicate and carry out all tasks.

As we step into 2024 age of complex , smart , learning and ever evolving ecosystems are already a reality. As neural nets begin to feed on data and build an intelligence of their own predictive modelling will not only become accurate but also be a lot more localized and targeted.?

CUSP of Gen AI ,LLM , Big Data and Machine Learning, MACH & Silicon - It's not Just Machines taking over, Its Convergence of Technologies?

On a serious note, it is not just Gen AI and LLM. Ability to understand language and predict next best token is a great "compute consuming" ability but not the only ability that is going to drive transformation in real world.

It is a combination of Gen AI, Big Data and machine learning & MACH and solid "High Performance Platform Engineering" that will drive transformation across sectors from Self Driving cars to Digital commerce to advanced diagnostics to loan default forecast to earthquake predictions.?

Adding natural language capability on top of powerful machine learning algorithms creates a human like credence to all transactions and extends machine learning beyond sql and nosql data to discovering data amidst natural conversations and deriving patterns out of it.?

Meeting your Consumers Anywhere, Everywhere -?Live stream Commerce, Social Commerce, Conversational Commerce

Live stream commerce and social commerce are getting to be the most favored commerce destinations for consumers, retailers and brands. This is a lot more than hyper-targeted brand placement with the right content at the right time enticing potential buyers through branded influencers.

It is an end-to-end commerce journey from friction less orders to payments to delivery to returns. The combination of Conversational commerce and social commerce is driving just that - Meeting Consumers Anywhere and Everywhere.?

Transforming Digital Commerce?- This is just the beginning.?

In an "Influencer" led Instant Commerce Economy primarily comprising of Gen Z’s, meeting your consumers “Anywhere & Everywhere” is of paramount importance. Hyper-targeted brand placements and promotions combining "Right - Content, Message, Channel, Media & Demography" is just the beginning of this transformation. For retailers and CPG brands alike, it is time to realize that days of website driven eCommerce is long gone.?

It is a known statistic that "Intentional Need Based" Commerce transactions are just 15% of the total commerce transactions. Remaining commerce transactions are driven by a combination of peer influence, unfulfilled wants, social compulsions and brand aspirations and need for instant gratification.

Fitting our brand into the "Need-Want" Cycle at the point of consumer Engagement is the key to drive up revenues for retailers and CPG brands alike.?

Enter the power of Combination of Gen AI led Conversational Commerce, Big data and Machine learning driven hyper targeting, MACH based end to end integrated ecosystem driving order to fulfillment cycle that offers?Powerful & Friction-less consumer experience.

Evolution of Multi-Modal Gen AI capabilities will only enhance the Digital Commerce space further - see it, like it, buy it, get it.

Digital Commerce - Gen AI Disrupting Systems of Engagement and Systems of Records , Digital Natives Driving Transformation

Digital Commerce has evolved into a Digital first ecosystem driving the entire source to pay lifecycle across Digital Natives, Retailers, CPG’s, Transportation & logistics companies. What started as E-Commerce and permeated to omni-channel across M Commerce, S-Commerce, Q-Commerce and Live stream Commerce has now emerged into a full-fledged Digital Native Cloud First Ecosystem.?

While Retailers are transitioning from Digital Natives to Hybrid combining Brick & Mortar strategy with Digital Presence, CPG’s and other Consumer facing brands are establishing a Direct 2 Consumer Omni-channel marketplace engaging directly with customers across Order to Delivery and Lead to cash lifecycle.?

?"Anytime Anywhere”?Commerce and emergence of Digital Natives - Transforming Customer Experience, Redefining Systems of Engagement

But Live stream commerce and social commerce have transformed the entire Digital Commerce Ecosystem. Live stream commerce is just not about retail media and contextual promotions and ads in social media platforms. It is a lot more than that. It is about targeted promos and hyper targeted pricing, completing the commerce transaction, managing customer loyalties, payments collection & orchestration, tracking fulfillment, managing returns and measuring the customer experience from click to delivery and post-delivery.?

This demands that the commerce ecosystem is not only integrated end to end but also is able to respond to events instantly and fulfill customer requests. It is no longer just an E-Commerce marketplace it is an end-to-end ecosystem.

Functional Paradigms & Architectural Complexity - Data Driven Personalization - Redefining Systems of Records

Such an always on Digital ecosystem needs to address several challenges across the process curve. Some of the key challenges are as below.

1. Instant Fulfillment & Programmatic Procurement?- Inventory management, Proximity based warehousing, Volume based Just in time procurement, Supply forecast based pricing negotiation.
2. Hyper Targeted Promotions & High Impact Landing Page- Customized and personalized landing page, maximize conversion and ARPU and reduce abandonment rate.
3. Contextual & Personalized bundles?- Bundles that not only are personalized to end customer but that also maximize profits and improve inventory velocity.
4. On-time Delivery & Proximity driven delivery?- last mile logistics, Logistics efficiency, ?integration with 3PL’s , least cost best delivery experience and live trace and track
5. Service intermediation and customer service?- Real time support experience, Proactive NPS management, Reverse Logistics Optimization, Returns prediction.
6. Complex payment orchestration?- Distributed and split payment orchestration and settlement engines

The end to end digitization of value chain are driven primarily by key technology pivots

1. MACH architecture?- driving granular microservices, API first approach, Cloud native engineering and Headless driving specialized experience with the same back end.
2. Event driven enterprise?- A retail enterprise that is not reactive with static data but is proactive with predictive events and responds to demand than reacting to demand.
3. Data driven ecosystem?- Data driving every use case realization making it contextual.
4. Complex Integration?made seamless, current and sync - Complex intermediate layers like (federated) GraphQL , Data Mesh , REST & GRPC , Kafka driven pipes and many more.
5. Generative AI?- LLM’s and Gen AI driving programmatic procurement, Hyper personalization and Conversational commerce.

Ecosystem Diversity & Complexity - Simply too many interconnected systems, Complex Discovery to Delivery Cycle

Digital Commerce always used to be a maze of multiple products and native applications covering several domain areas across Storefront & Commerce, Catalog, PIM & MDM , DC & Warehousing, Supply chain management, logistics & delivery management, Order management systems and many more.

These set of products were loosely integrated and coupled through several integration approaches resulting in massive data propagation delays and poor customer experience.

Designing & Delivering - Concept to Product - A realization journey

"Segment of One Concept" has made this challenge even more complex driving hyper personalized approach to each consumer with an array of data that feeds into the personalization journey.

Lastly Single View of X (customers, catalog, inventory, Suppliers) is only that much more complex given the complexity involved in various data stores engaged in the ecosystem and the sheer complexity and variety of master data store that drives various aspects of the ecosystem.

Developing such an ecosystem needs a comprehensive approach to Engineering such Digital Native Ecosystems and bring in a 360-degree perspective across Domain, Technology, Engineering & Architecture Depth, Data & Integration expertise and Reusable components.?

As 2024 begins it is time to drastically rethink how we imagine, and design distributed intelligent ecosystems. Wishing all a happy and successful new year. Let the Engineers rise an shine and transform.