In addition to adding some new generative AI tools, some companies are using large-scale language models to overhaul their entire customer-facing platforms.
Last week, Priceline added more features to Penny, the AI travel assistant that debuted last June. When it first launched, Penny could only help people find accommodations, but now they can also help people find flights, rental cars, and vacation packages. Updates to the online travel agency’s Trip Intelligence Suite, built with OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Google’s Vertex AI, include using Penny to search for destinations, generate itineraries, and interact directly with chatbots. Contains the ability to change plans.
Lesley Klein, Priceline’s senior vice president of strategy and brand marketing, said the company is testing generated AI in other parts of its business, including paid and organic search, messaging formats, and various creative assets. is.
“As a company, we were very early on and actively embraced the potential of generative AI,” Klein told Digiday. “There’s no denying that it’s going to change every aspect of business and life, so we didn’t want to be shy about it.”
Penny is trained on a variety of data sources including quality content, first-party data, search data, and on-site behavior. It also connects to various APIs to answer questions beyond Priceline. It can also help with other parts of Priceline’s marketing strategy. For example, Penny may one day help identify psychological or behavioral data that was previously unclear.
Kevin Healy, Priceline’s chief product officer, said that instead of starting at the first step when travelers plan a trip, the company started at the end. When a user checks out, Priceline asks if there is anything else they would like to know. Are pets allowed? What is your cancellation policy? Do nearby restaurants accommodate your dietary needs?
This approach helped “get to the real heart of what people are worried about,” Healy said. And Priceline expected a conversion deficit due to distracting questions, but that never happened.
“It really helped me get from checkout to funnel,” Heery said. “Then they go to the details page where people start thinking about the hotel’s positioning. Now they’re on the home page, and who knows what questions people will ask there.”
Leading companies and startups alike are adding more ways to help consumers, business customers, and employees. One of his startups that debuted last week is Sierra, co-founded by former Salesforce co-CEO Brett Taylor, which promises to enable people to perform various actions using AI agents. Masu. Another of his, XGenAI, focuses on building new generative AI capabilities for retail and e-commerce. However, some companies are also experiencing bot-related failures. Last week, a Canadian court ordered Air Canada to pay back money after a chatbot provided inaccurate information in a 2022 conversation with his customers.
Generative AI is already being adopted by many e-commerce companies. According to a new report from Junglescout, 50% of Amazon businesses are using AI to manage their e-commerce channels. Approximately 34% use AI to create and optimize listings, 14% use AI to create marketing and social content, and 7% use AI to assist with keyword and SEO research. I am.
Prompts and products: More AI news and announcements
- OpenAI on ChatGPT Remember conversation. We also previewed a new text-to-video model called Sora that allows you to create life-like videos. (This model may compete with other AI startups such as Runway and Stability.)
- Detection list added to open source platform Hugging Face tool To reduce AI risks.
- Cohere AI research nonprofit has released a new large-scale language model that supports 101 languages. This could help accelerate the adoption of AI across borders and cultures.
- The Federal Trade Commission has proposed new rules to protect people from harm caused by AI impersonation. In a separate announcement, the FTC warned that it could investigate companies that try to use personal information to train AI models.
- Salesforce announced a new generative AI feature for Slack that lets employees summarize conversations.
- Alembic, an AI startup focused on marketing analytics, announced it has raised $14 million from investors including VC founded by DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Other articles across DIGIDAY
- Nearly 20 tech companies are stepping up efforts to tackle harmful AI content related to global elections.
- Qualcomm has created a new sonic logo for Snapdragon, the mobile processor platform powering a wave of new AI-enabled smartphones, PCs, and headsets. Snap Beat, which debuted last week, will appear in a series of marketing efforts by Qualcomm and its various partners.
- Publishers like The Washington Post make it difficult for AI crawlers, while others like Politico EU welcome them.
- DIGIDAY+ Research: Most brands and retailers are adopting generative AI, with chatbots at the top of the list of uses.
