Chatbots are in their prime. Powered by Generative AI, the technology allows for a fully personalized customer service experience by equipping consumers with a virtual beauty assistant. These AI-driven advisors offer a range of helpful outputs, from customized actions to tutorials and product recommendations. For many, chatbot technology is becoming second nature—88% of businesses worldwide reveal they have implemented a form of AI in the past year. Consumers are also accustomed to the technology, with 88% of shoppers reporting having had at least one conversation with a chatbot within the same timeframe.
Beauty names, including Sephora and Superdrug, have utilized chatbots to amplify the feeling of a personal in-store service for consumers online. The shopping strategy has proven effective, and business leaders state that chatbots have increased their company's sales by an average of 67%.
Shiseido-owned Drunk Elephant joined the growing list of beauty brands engaging with chatbot technology. The brand has leveraged Qwen, Alibaba Cloud's proprietary large language model, to create DRUNKGPT, a virtual assistant for enhanced customer interaction in China. DRUNKGPT answers any customer inquiry, from product recommendations to skincare tips, and is complemented by nuanced and personal responses.
"We have seen growing demand from customers across sectors, especially in retail, exploring opportunities in the generative AI area," says Yosano Masahiro, Chief Solutions Architect at Alibaba Cloud. "We are excited to offer our full stack of AI offerings, from infrastructure and various AI models to tools and services for AI application development, supporting them to better capitalize on the booming AI trend."
DRUNKGPT can be found under Drunk Elephant's website tab, "Drunk Moment." Consumers can interact with the chatbot through either text or voice input formats generated by Alibaba Cloud's automatic speech recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS) tools. DRUNKGPT was trained on Drunk Elephant’s knowledge database and optimized using Alibaba Cloud's various AI services including supervised fine-tuning (SFT), retrieval augmented generation (RAG), vector recall, and multiagent framework.
"At Drunk Elephant, we are committed to pioneering retail innovation to offer a unique shopping experience for our customers. We are pleased to tap into the transformative power of Alibaba Cloud's AI to bring skincare retailing to another level," comments Andy Cai, Brand Director of Drunk Elephant China. "We believe that this collaboration with Alibaba Cloud will help us further grow our brand value and better engage with our tech-savvy young consumers."
The personal assistant technology will be integrated into Drunk Elephant’s offline activations too. In the near future, DRUNKGPT will be implemented into launch events in China, with a focus on promoting its ingredient elimination philosophy (centering on the brand’s core concept of avoiding what they refer to as the "Suspicious 6") within the Chinese market.
The news comes at a time when AI experts are branding the technology as something to be approached with an "adopt or fail" mindset. "Adopting these technologies is no longer optional; rather, it is essential for long-term survival," says a spokesperson for AI development company Daisy Intelligence.
DRUNKGPT will allow Drunk Elephant to learn valuable insights from its consumers, including common queries, product demands, and emerging trends. This data can then be used to help the brand tailor its offerings and improve the customer experience, addressing each shopper's needs in a personalized manner, which will ultimately enhance consumer loyalty.
As AI-landscape in the beauty industry continues to evolve, it is worth reflecting on Meta Partnerships and Business Development/AI Lead Azadeh Yazdan’s words:"AI has been powering retail for years, and retailers have only been scratching the surface of what's possible. A combination of the right solutions and an intelligent approach to adoption and data management will, in the end, help all retailers reap the benefits."
