Tag: chat
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Analyzing ChatGPT Ads: Study Reveals Key Insights
Accounts tied to lower-income ZIP codes were more likely to be shown ChatGPT ads at all, according to the first independent audit of advertising inside an LLM. It ran 91 fake users for three weeks before the ads stopped, and the authors think OpenAI worked out the accounts were not real.
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Japan Airlines Scores Well on Gemini, Poorly on ChatGPT. It’s Buying Ads to Close the Gap.
Japan Airlines has a measurable problem: Gemini talks about it well, ChatGPT barely does, and Reddit — where travelers argue about premium seats — hardly mentions it at all. Its agency turned that into a targeting input, and the airline is buying its first ChatGPT ads in August.
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Kohl’s Adds an AI Gift Finder for Mother’s Day, and a Data Chatbot for Employees
Kohl’s rolled out a Mother’s Day Gift Finder, a conversational AI shopping agent built with Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience, according to Retail Dive. The tool asks about a recipient’s hobbies, interests, and style, then serves up product ideas. Shoppers can also upload an image to find similar products, review product information, and…
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Dick’s Sporting Goods Is Turning Chatbot Small Talk Into CRM Fuel
Dick’s Sporting Goods is preparing to launch an AI-powered “digital coach” built with Adobe, positioning it less as the usual help-desk deflection bot and more as the “front door” to the retailer’s CRM. The idea: shoppers chat about what they’re buying, playing, training for, or trying to fix — a golf swing, for example —…
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AI Is the New “What Should I Watch?” Button
Nielsen/Gracenote surveyed 4,003 U.S. AI chatbot users (ages 13–79) and found chatbots are now edging out streaming-service recommendation rails as the go-to source for what to watch. Usage is accelerating across the board: 66% say they’ve increased chatbot use in the last 12–18 months, jumping to 80% for Gen Alpha—and more than half of Gen…
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Fenty Slides Into Customer DMs (With an AI Beauty Advisor)
Fenty Beauty is taking its community-first strategy into messaging. The brand launched “Rose Amber,” an AI-powered beauty advisor on WhatsApp—its first formal partnership with the platform in the U.S.—so customers can chat with Fenty for product recommendations, tutorials, and reviews in something closer to a text thread than a product page. Inside the chat, users…
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Walmart’s “Ask Sparky” Is Ringing Up 35% Bigger Carts
Walmart says shoppers who use Sparky, its AI shopping assistant inside the Walmart app, rack up baskets about 35% larger than shoppers who don’t, according to newly appointed CEO John Furner on the company’s Q4 earnings call. Sparky lives behind the smiley-face “Ask Sparky” button and helps customers with product discovery (finding items, summarizing reviews)…
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Chatbot Success: JCPenney’s GiftBot Case Study
JCPenney and dentsu X took on holiday chaos headfirst with GiftBot, a chat-based shopping assistant that made gifting less stressful and more personal. Designed using dentsu’s Intelligent Messaging tech and deployed across Facebook and Instagram via click-to-message ads, GiftBot provided real-time, tailored product suggestions based on user preferences like price, rating, and category. It even…
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Pandora Leans in to AI for Service and Personalized Shopping
Pandora turned to AI not for flash, but for function. With 40% of its yearly revenue riding on the holiday season, the jewelry brand needed scalable service without bloating its call center headcount. Enter Clara, a chatbot that now handles 60% of customer inquiries solo—a 20-point jump over its predecessor. The result? A 10% bump…
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Meet Nick Jolly: R&R’s AI Santa Can Bench More Than You
R&R Partners just unwrapped “Nick Jolly,” a tattooed, motorcycle-riding AI Santa who’s less about ho-ho-ho and more about flexing his algorithmic muscles. Designed as both a holiday stunt and a preview of the agency’s proprietary AI ambitions, Jolly lives on a microsite where curious visitors can shoot him a message and watch him respond in…
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Stagwell Puts AI on the Line With Voice-First Service Platform
Stagwell has launched NewVoices.ai, a new AI-powered workflow tool designed to handle everything from sales tasks to customer service—using virtual agents that speak any language and never sleep. It’s pitched as a full-stack operating system for enterprise teams that want to automate their appointment setting, lead conversion, customer inquiries, and support issues without sacrificing personalization.…
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Ralph Lauren Launches AI Stylist: Ask Ralph
Ralph Lauren has launched “Ask Ralph,” an AI chatbot developed with Microsoft to act as a virtual stylist for mobile app users. This assistant, trained on branded materials and product data, helps users with outfit suggestions and style inquiries, ensuring a tailored experience rooted in Ralph Lauren’s brand identity. Built on Microsoft’s Azure platform, the…
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Weber Ranch Vodka’s AI Wants to Mix You a Drink
Weber Ranch 1902 Vodka has launched “Tex,” a chatbot bartender powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, available via SMS or web. Tex provides personalized cocktail recipes based on pantry ingredients, interprets photos, and plans big-batch cocktails. Aimed at tech-savvy at-home drinkers, Tex enhances the vodka brand’s market presence amidst industry challenges.
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Mercedes Test-Drives Conversational AI Ads
Microsoft just pulled back the curtain on its three-month pilot with Mercedes-Benz for Showroom Ads—an online experience designed to feel more like stepping into a dealership than clicking a banner ad. Anchored in Microsoft’s Copilot AI, the ads let users ask specific questions (“What’s different from my current model?”) and get dynamic, tailored responses mid-conversation.…
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Copilot, Who Scored the Fastest Goal Ever?
The Premier League just kicked off a five-year collaboration with Microsoft, aiming to give fans smarter, faster, and deeper ways to follow the beautiful game—without needing to memorize 30 years of match stats. At the heart of the deal is the Premier League Companion, an AI-powered sidekick built into the league’s app and website. Backed…
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Verizon’s New AI Sidekick Handles the Heavy Lifting
Verizon is giving its customer service a technical facelift with a fresh rollout of its My Verizon app, now outfitted with a chatbot powered by Google’s Gemini AI. This new AI assistant helps tackle typical account tasks—think billing questions, upgrades, and new lines—aiming to free up human reps for more complicated inquiries. And for those…
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Delish Adds AI Cooking Coach to Website
What started as a batter-smeared idea is now Delish’s latest entrée into AI: a voice-activated recipe assistant called Cooking Coach. Built in a few months and trained exclusively on Delish’s 30,000-strong recipe archive, the tool lets users cook hands-free, juggling tasks like ingredient swaps, timers, and portion adjustments without touching a screen. The project, born…
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TikTok Gives Merchants a Smart Sidekick
TikTok is doubling down on turning casual creators into serious commerce players with its latest launch: an AI-powered Seller Assistant for TikTok Shop. This chatbot aims to streamline life for merchants by answering anything from “How are my sales doing?” to “What should I do about that return?”—all in real time. Think of it as…
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Cineverse Leans on AI for Content Discovery
Cineverse is making waves in the entertainment industry by integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into its operations, aiming to enhance both content discovery and production decisions. In a recent discussion, Cineverse’s President, Erick Opeka, highlighted the company’s focus on three main areas: operating as a full-service entertainment studio, managing enthusiast-driven streaming channels, and developing a next-generation…
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ThredUp’s AI tools increase purchases and return visits
ThredUp’s recent dive into AI-driven tools is paying off, with tangible results indicating a notable shift in shopper behavior and engagement. Since launching its visual search and Style Chat chatbot in August, ThredUp reports that customers using these tools are four times more likely to complete a purchase than those who don’t. Additionally, new customers…
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Le Pain Quotidien tests digital customer clones
Le Pain Quotidien is embracing AI to enhance customer engagement and operational efficiency through its new digital assistant, Alain.AI. Initially developed to help franchisees streamline menu development, Alain.AI is now being leveraged to create “digital customer clones” by analyzing data from its loyalty program and social outreach. These digital personas will help the chain gain…
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ThredUp’s New AI Tools
ThredUp has introduced two new AI-powered tools aimed at enhancing the thrifting experience. The first tool allows users to upload images from platforms like Instagram or their devices to search ThredUp’s vast inventory of 4 million items for similar secondhand pieces. The second tool, the Style Chat chatbot, provides personalized style suggestions based on factors…
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4A’s Noteworthy News – 12th Edition
THE BIG STORY: Walking the GenAI Tightrope – Balancing Transparency and Trust in Advertising Recent articles reveal a critical balancing act underway in the advertising industry: transparency in AI usage is crucial to maintaining trust, but disclosing AI involvement risks alienating consumers. A study by Washington State University found that using the term “artificial intelligence”…
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PepsiCo experiments with Smart Cans and AI hydration coaching
At Cannes Lions, PepsiCo showcased its latest AI-driven innovations for Gatorade and Pepsi. Gatorade introduced an AI Hydration Coach, “Anna,” designed to provide personalized hydration advice using data from the Gatorade Sports Science Institute. Meanwhile, Pepsi debuted the Smart Can, a connected device featuring digital screens and sensors to enhance consumer engagement through personalized experiences.…
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Target launching internal chatbot tool for employees
Target is launching its “Store Companion chatbot” across all nearly 2,000 stores to enhance employee efficiency and customer service. Developed in-house, this AI tool on store handheld devices answers procedural questions and helps with customer interactions. With this move, Target joins other major retailers like Amazon and Walmart in integrating AI to improve operations amidst…
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Walmart continues innovation with GenAI enhancements and more drone delivery
Walmart continues to expand what it has described as a “retail renaissance,” announcing expanded offerings across several areas it has been investing in already: Drone delivery – now available in the Walmart app InHome Delivery and replenishment A Gen-AI Powered Shopping assistant, building on the GenAI search feature it announced at CES in January. At…
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Zola aims to de-stress wedding planning with chatbot
Zola has launched “Split the Decisions,” an AI tool designed to balance wedding planning tasks between partners. By evaluating preferences and strengths, it assigns tasks to ensure both partners equally contribute. Built on OpenAI’s GPT conversational interface platform, the process aims to help couples divide and conquer to manage the mental load of making over…
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Media.Monks launches Persona.Flow
S4Capital’s Media.Monks has enhanced its existing Monks.Flow service with additional AI-powered features that transform owned customer data into customer personas that the agency and its clients can interact with via a chatbot interface. Persona.Flow offers a user-friendly interface to help brands streamline strategy workflows, increase their precision, and democratize deep data insights. Its core technology…
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Kitchen Appliance Brand Lēvo Boosts Sales Through Chatbot
From AdWeek… Denver-based kitchen appliance brand Lēvo, known for its patented herbal infusion technology, saw an uptick in sales thanks to its generative artificial intelligence chatbot, Herb. “Approximately 30% of our customer interactions with Herb involve effective upselling strategies,” said Chrissy Bellman, Lēvo founder and CEO. The company wouldn’t share specifics. Brands are increasingly adopting…
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OpenAI’s GPT store launching soon
Rumors suggest the launch was delayed due to the leadership soap opera that unfolded shortly after the announcement, but the AI giant now has an opportunity to build buzz during CES, despite not having an official presence on the show floor… OpenAI plans to launch a store for GPTs, custom apps based on its text-generating…
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Volvo deploys chatbot inside WhatsApp
Interesting piece in AdAge about the story behind the chatbot built into one of Meta’s flagship properties. As part of a larger push to bring AI into opportunities for advertisers, Meta is helping brands create chatbots that combine developments in virtual assistant technology with the reach offered through its popular messaging apps. One such brand…
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Meta’s Ray Ban shades add AI vision
Augmented reality seems poised to really hit its stride once we get to a wearable device that doesn’t look like a crazy pair of ski goggles or worse. It’s going to be a long road to get there, but Meta’s collaboration with Ray Ban gives us a glimpse of that future, having recently added computer…
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Profitero Launches AI-Powered Retail Analytics
The platform, part of Publicis Groupe, aims to open its vast collection of commerce data to simple text queries via a chatbot-like interface. Per AdAge, the new release aims to solve two key problems: managing a wide range of data, including sales, supply chain and media spending, in a way that a wide range of…
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Ikea’s “Billie” chatbot handles nearly half of call center interactions
The efficiency gain here is only part of the story. Perhaps more interesting is that the focus seems to be not on reducing headcount but rather on increasing availability of design consulting services. In the last two years, more than 8,500 call center employees have been re-trained to serve as interior design advisors. IKEA is…
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Dermalogica is using ChatGPT for education and upskilling
Per this story at Glossy … This month, premium skin-care brand Dermalogica launched a ChatGPT version of its “Dermalogica: The Book” skin-care treatment manual, used to train professional skin-care therapists. The brand’s wider push into technology integration is centered on equipping its workers to harness AI rather than be replaced by it. As ChatGPT and…
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Wendy’s and Google Reinvent the Drive-Thru with an AI Chatbot
The fast-food chain has customized a language model with terms like ‘JBC’ for junior bacon cheeseburger and ‘biggie bags’ for meal combos Wendy’s is automating its drive-through service using an artificial-intelligence chatbot powered by natural-language software developed by Google and trained to understand the myriad ways customers order off the menu. With the move, Wendy’s…