Dive Brief:
- AI technology and agents influenced 17% of orders placed in the U.S. during Cyber Week, accounting for $13.5 billion in sales, according to Salesforce data from Nov. 25 through Dec. 1. However, not all implementations led to enjoyable experiences.
- Cyber Week’s winning brands took a long-term approach to rolling out AI-generated review summaries, on-site chatbots and third-party integrations, according to Kassi Socha, senior director analyst at Gartner.
- “A few big name, multibrand retailers” launched their AI solutions too quickly, Socha said. These under tested tools created worse experiences than the brands’ traditional search and navigation functions.
Dive Insight:
AI was both the biggest CX winner and loser on Black Friday through Cyber Monday — with the difference being how and when brands introduced the technology.
Retailers who took a long-term approach to integrating their AI solutions, including Amazon, Walmart and The Home Depot, saw success, according to Socha. These companies have been working on their tools for months or years, and the experience was well-honed ahead of the busiest shopping days.
“They saw a surge in traffic, they saw a faster purchase cycle, and they saw a customer who found what they wanted at the right price at the right time a bit quicker,” Socha told CX Dive.
Retailers with their own branded AI agents experienced 32% faster sales growth than brands without agents during Cyber Week, according to Salesforce data.
Speed is a major benefit of AI-driven experiences, according to Socha. Good AI tools make customers feel satisfied by how efficiently they found the right gift at the right price, similar to how curbside pickup made the holiday shopping experience more convenient in the first years of the pandemic.
Conversely, brands that didn’t fine tune their AI tools before introducing them to the public ended up with slower, less trustworthy experiences.
“If you don't train an AI solution to truly understand your end customer, the output will not serve them in a way that helps them find the right product at the right price and convert quicker,” Socha said. “All the benefits that you get from AI are lost. When hallucinations occur, brand trust is eroded.”
Even though it takes a lot of work to craft a truly great AI experience, smaller brands shouldn’t be afraid of exploring their options ahead of the next holiday season, according to Socha. AI review summaries are a great place to start, as they help consumers make faster and better informed decisions without requiring customer-specific information.
