Automated content generation: generative AI and back-end ecommerce
Not only can generative AI improve front-end customer experience, it can also automate workflow on the back end. While creative work from generative AI models lacks complexity and nuance, new systems can easily automate simple, consistent content tasks at a human level.
"Generative AI can speed up content creation for commerce,” says Ravuri. “Future iterations of these models will hopefully provide more transparency and fewer errors, but the information still needs to be reviewed and validated.”
There are several scenarios within back-end e-commerce transactions where generative AI can assist with content creation:
1. Consistent product descriptions
Many retailers are already investing in AI to automatically A/B test product descriptions to find the most engaging variation. However, recent advancements in AI’s contextual ability allow retailers to automatically standardize descriptions across a variety of sellers.
Often vendors upload wildly inconsistent product descriptions to retail marketplaces. Rather than manually rewriting product descriptions, content writers can directly prompt generative AI with specific instructions and constraints to create product descriptions that are standardized, grammatically correct and in line with brand tone.
2. Personalized product images
When customers browse e-commerce websites, each product image requires photographers, graphic designers, models and creative staff for the shoot. Generative AI would allow retailers to generate personalized product images for each customer simply based on text descriptions and historical image data.
For example, an athletic apparel retailer could automatically generate an image of a college student wearing a sports jersey for a 19-year-old customer. If customers are willing to provide more personal data or even their own prompts, generative AI could show the customer each product in a variety of different contexts of their choosing.
3. Auto-fill transaction flows
The same use case could also apply more generally to full web pages, allowing retailers to guide their vendors and customers even faster through the e-commerce journey. Right now, most e-commerce website flows are generic and fixed or based on simple inputs like time zone or what channel people are coming from.
Generative AI would allow retailers to provide abbreviated site experiences for each customer and each vendor, automatically filling in product, store or customer information on the back end.