Google and Walmart and have announced that they will be teaming up in a bid to marry the tech company's cutting edge AI capabilities with the giant retailer's vast product selection.
This move makes use of the existing Google Express app, which currently provides digital shopping between a number of other retailers. The Walmart offerings are expected to be available on the app in September.
The end goal for both is to create a more 'personalised' shopping experience. Key to the effort is utilisation of the Google Assistant, an applied AI technology that relies heavily on Google's proficient Natural Language Processing (NLP) expertise. Shopper's will be able to use voice search, and their prior purchase history at Walmart can prompt the AI to make recommendations of the essential products they need to keep stock of.
The service will offer consumers perks such as free 2-day shipping (provided total spend thresholds are met) and possibly additional price discounts or other incentives to show up to the Walmart store in person.
The presumed strategy of the partnership is to boost the accessibility of Walmart's products to online shoppers competing directly with Amazon, the most dominant player in the space. Coupled with a gigantic product selection, Amazon's AI technology is already being utilised on their home and mobile devices. By adding their own AI capabilities through the help of Google, Walmart can be seen to level the playing field online.
For Google, the partnership is a chance to deploy their capable AI technology into a retail business environment, and add some profits to offset the costs of research and development. Also, when you continually develop AI technology to compete with other emerging players on the world stage, you need to apply it to real world situations to collect data, figure out what it needs to do next, and how the space you are competing in will evolve over time. This deal allows them to do this.
For Walmart, the benefits of Google AI to them can be measured directly in the experience to their customers:
"When it comes to voice shopping, we want to make it as easy as possible for our customers. That’s why it makes sense for us to team up with Google. They’ve made significant investments in natural language processing and artificial intelligence to deliver a powerful voice shopping experience. We know this means being compared side-by-side with other retailers, and we think that’s the way it should be. An open and transparent shopping universe is good for customers"Source: Google, Walmart
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