Grocery shopping can feel like a chore sometimes – adding items to your basket individually is tiresome, and you always end up forgetting something anyway. This is where ABBY comes in! ABBY, Albert Heijn’s AI-powered smart shopping assistant, makes your shopping experience faster, more personalized, eco-friendly, and, overall, smarter!”
Why ABBY for Albert Heijn?
Albert Heijn is the leader in the Dutch supermarket industry and has a strong online presence. The company has been collecting customer data since 1998, when it first introduced the “Bonus card”. ABBY builds on this strong foundation, by using the data available to make personalized recommendations, helping to drive revenue and increase sustainability.
How Does ABBY Work?
ABBY is built on a large language model (LLM) that analyzes customer data such as previous shopping behavior, dietary preferences, and even the size of the household. Imagine the following scenario: You need to do the weekly shopping for your family of 4, and your two pets. Also, your in-laws are visiting this weekend and you will be hosting. You hop onto Albert Heijns website or app and start chatting with ABBY. You tell her about your weekend plans and the dreaded visits of the in-laws (they always want something with meat, but you are a vegetarian!) ABBY creates a shopping list for you – healthy vegetarian weekday meals, organic pet supplies, and all ingredients needed to prepare a pizza party for the in-laws (they can put meat on their pizzas and you can skip it – win-win!). Luckily, ABBY also adds milk and rice to your cart – you are running low on them and you didn’t think to put into your cart.
ABBY makes your shopping experience more efficient, convenient, and personalized. She helps you reduce waste by remembering previous purchases and guides customers towards more sustainable choices.
Challenges and Considerations
AI is still new to many people and to ensure a smooth roll out and adoption of ABBY a few challenges were considered. Albert Heijn will have to address issues of data privacy and convincing (elder) customers to use AI. Additionally, the company must make sure that the system fits into its already existing data ecosystem.
What’s Next?
AI is here to stay. Multiple companies are already experimenting with the implementation of AI and Albert Heijn is no different, using their Gen AI labs to test things out. We believe, that Albert Heijn can benefit from the first mover advantage, if they roll out ABBY soon. Additionally, the company will see a significant increase in customer retention and loyalty, as well as a boost to revenue. By combining personalization, sustainability, and convenience, ABBY is going to make grocery shopping smarter and more fun for customers.
Participants:
Francesca Pia Galtieri 602866
Airi Lemke 723948
Hanne Nissen 714934
Emma Schlag 716824
