Ask HN: Beside chatbots, what are the best application for AI in ecommerce?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20048196

by matysanchez • 7 years ago

2 6 7 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

AI is a trending technology right now. There are a ton of companies applying AI in different industries like autonomous cars and chatbots.

What do you think are the best application for AI in e-commerce and who is doing it well?

smt882• 7 years ago

There are a ton of companies applying AI in different industries like autonomous cars and chatbots.

No, there are companies marketing AI in those industries. AI as most people think of it doesn't yet exist. The most famous example is the massive fraud that is/was IBM's Watson[1].

It's common for companies to say they're AI when they're actually doing text-search, crowdsourcing work from real humans, or doing statistical regressions on a data set.

Even autonomous driving is not exactly AI because it can't react well to novel situations. Waymo is way ahead of the others because it has massive amounts of training data, not because it's AI is so much better.

If true AI existed, Google and Apple would certainly have it, and your phone's voice assistant wouldn't be laughably stupid 80% of the time. Facebook might also have it, and their chatbot initiative would've been more successful.

What do you think are the best application for AI in e-commerce and who is doing it well?

This is like saying what is the best application for being smart in e-commerce. It's so broad that it's impossible to answer. Theoretically AI can do tasks that previously only humans could do, but it can do them faster and cheaper.

That's applicable to literally everything in e-commerce (and any other services industry).

1. https://www.rogerschank.com/fraudulent-claims-made-by-IBM-ab...

matysanchez2• 7 years ago

Thanks for your answer and share your good information with the community. I am not looking for the "best application for AI in ecommerce", I want to learn what other companies are doing with AI in the ecommerce field. I just search for a few hours angel.co, looking for companies that really apply AI, but dind't find anything interesting, most of them are applying marketing automation selling as a AI.

smt882• 7 years ago

I think you misunderstood me. What I meant to say is that AI doesn't exist. The companies claiming to sell it are lying.

takanori2• 7 years ago

Personalized items based on past purchases. In clothing I’d settle for items in my size based on past purchases.

matysanchez2• 7 years ago

Thanks for your answer. Do you know any company doing this? and maybe selling as a service/product? We all know that Amazon, Alibaba, eBay use AI for a lot of stuff related to product recommendations and so... but I want to learn more about startups and small companies doing this.

takanori2• 7 years ago

Check Shopify AppStore. There are a lot of e-commerce plugins

Ask HN: Beside chatbots, what are the best application for AI in ecommerce?

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