From SEO optimization to virtual fitting rooms, generative AI is retailers’ secret weapon for boosting sales this Singles’ Day. As anticipation builds for Singles’ Day 2024 — the world’s biggest shopping festival on November 11, which originated in China — generative AI is set to play a central role in the retail bonanza. The shopping event, which pulled in an estimated $156 billion last year, offers brands a chance to revitalize China’s cooling retail market.
New insights from Bain & Co suggest that merchants leveraging Gen AI could outpace their competitors and enhance profitability even further. Generative AI made its Singles’ Day debut last year when Alibaba’s Taobao introduced Wenwen, an AI chatbot designed to offer shoppers personalized guidance, including navigation tips for the day’s extensive discounts. While platforms like Taobao were still fine-tuning their AI capabilities just weeks before 2023’s Singles’ Day, this year, generative AI is expected to become less of a novelty and more of a functional asset.
According to Bain & Co, generative AI tools are gaining significant traction, especially among Gen Z, with 23% of young shoppers using these tools in the past six months. Across all age groups, Chinese consumers are gravitating toward generative AI in areas like visual search, customer service chatbots, and voice-activated shopping. Local e-commerce retailers are proving even keener on the tech than Gen Z shoppers, with 52% of surveyed sel.
