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Move Now or Fall Behind: How Generative AI Will Redefine bol’s Competitive Edge

As e-commerce giants such as Amazon and Zalando are capturing more and more market share in the Netherlands, both also recently integrated GenAI into their shopping assistants. Although Amazon has not yet deployed its shopping assistant, Rufus, in the Benelux, it will only be a matter of time. Then there is bol, the market leader in the e-commerce market in the Benelux. It has been seemingly untouchable in this position, but if bol does not keep up with these trends, things could change. Where its sister company, Albert Heijn, uses GenAI already in its app through things such as creating recipes based on what you have in your refrigerator. Bol’s GenAI usage is quite limited at the moment. Its chatbot for customer services is the closest thing to innovation in this regard, but it is still quite static and not a real conversational shopping assistant as its competitors. That is where the proposal to integrate a GenAI- powered shopping assistant into bol’s platforms comes into play. 

The GenAI-powered shopping assistant improves the customer experience by offering extensive support to buying decisions, by offering four separate interfaces for targeted AI support. Data driven and contextual guidance on product evaluations enhances product discovery, eases stress and decision fatigue, and limits the need for customer support. Advertising the AI assistant on the first page of the website, makes visitors aware of the tool at first glance. For first timers, it can help in navigating the abundant product offerings.

Due to network effects an increased number of shoppers and higher retention makes bol a more attractive platform for sellers, given the sales opportunities reached through bol. This platform effect describes the added value to buyers and sellers and, effectively, bol (Eisenmann et al. 2006).

Besides these benefits, the business case is attractive as well. Based on industry research by Bain & Company and McKinsey & Company, revenue can be increased significantly by 5 to 10 percent (Vu et al., 2024; Sukharevsky et al., 2024). In addition, conversation rates can be increased by 7% or more as well as basket uplift of 2 to 4 percent (Vu et al., 2024; Sukharevsky et al., 2024). With regard to ROI, the extra revenue generated can be 24 times the investment required (Vu et al., 2024). Especially as the costs of LLM API usage is expected to decrease considerably, with estimates mentioning an 80% drop in the coming years (Sukharevsky et al., 2024).  

All in all, the proposal to integrate a GenAI-powered shopping assistant into bol’s platform will result in great benefits to both the customer and company. The integration will enhance personalization, improve operational efficiency and reinforce the ecosystem effects between customers and sellers. If done well, bol can turn this integration into a scalable model for further innovation across the organization and expand its competitive advantage in the Benelux market. 

Authors are the members of Information Strategy Team 33

References:

Vu, M., & Keely, L. (2024). Retail and Gen AI: Now scale those terrific early returns. Bain & Company. https://www.bain.com/insights/retail-and-gen-ai-now-scale-those-terrific-early-returns/

Sukharevsky, A., Agrawal, N., Bhatia, A., & Tandon, A. (2024, July 17). LLM to ROI: How to scale GenAI in retail. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/llm-to-roi-how-to-scale-gen-ai-in-retail

Eisenmann, T., Parker, G., and Van Alstyne, M.W. (2006). Strategies for two-sided markets. Harvard Business Review 84(10) 92-101.

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I was not a big user of AI tools. You might be surprised, but I only recently got the paid version of ChatGPT and feel that I started really using it quite late compared to others. However, way back, around 2 years ago, I used a prototyping tool for the first time. However, since then, these prototyping tools have gotten better and have AI integrated into them. So here I want to bring attention to my experience with the two AI prototyping tools, which I recently explored: Lovable and Gamma.app. 

Introduced in our AI prototyping guest lecture, Lovable stands out as a tool that can develop apps and websites by merely chatting with an AI without any coding skills necessary, within a few minutes. I explored it for our course, testing how it works. To come up with a prompt, I went to ChatGPT to generate a prompt to then input into Lovable. It is really smart; you can continue to chat with it just like ChatGPT, to improve the web or app, and customize it however you like. It makes me think that anything is possible, and that this is a new way to develop our own webpages, apps, and scalable online businesses without coding expertise. However, of course, just like any freemium model, the free version has limits in functionalities, but the possibilities are non-negotiable. 

Gamma.app is also a great tool to develop presentations as well as simple webpages from prompts, focusing on ‘content-to-visual’ output, allowing for anybody without design skills or too busy to skip the manual work. It impressed me when I experimented with it for a pitch and needed a presentation. It generated matching layouts and colours while looking very professional. In this respect, one can focus more on what they want to say instead of how the design looks. 

I found it intriguing how AI has been moving into the creative realm and can now be a creative partner to many of us. These tools are also so simple to learn; there are so many different resources at our disposal. Simple YouTube tutorials can teach us how to use these tools and enable us to unlock new capabilities. 

Let me know in the comments your thoughts on these AI tools? Have you ever built a fully operational website using AI? 

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We’ve all heard about the new smart glasses that enable you to augment your current reality, overlaying information onto our real view. Google made an attempt, Apple introduced Vision Pro, and Meta launched smart glasses with Ray-Ban priced at $200-500. The idea is to make life feel connected, and more efficient with the digital overlays. But are these glasses practical and here for good or just a hype?

Companies are beginning to make use of Augmented Reality, like the airline industry (e.g., Chinese Southern Airlines) and automotive industry. Porsche, for example, is implementing the “Tech Live Look” smart glasses designed to improve technical services in North American dealerships (Li, 2022, Porsche, n.d.). These smart glasses can be used for car repairs and inspections, supporting the mechanic by displaying diagnostics, errors, and components directly on the physical machine and allowing for a seamless interaction. For industries where efficiency and precision is critical to operations, AR glasses can add genuine value.

What are its use cases in everyday life? The promise is that it can be implemented in many ways, like paying with sight, reading reviews in coffee shops, and snapping moments by simply tapping the glasses. The Ray-Ban smart glasses Gen 2, among others, are the current version, offering AI functionalities in a classic wearable pair of Ray-Bans (Gibbs, 2025).

Responses to AR glasses indicate public skepticism about the practicality of the product. Issues such as increased cognitive load, overreliance, and redundancy, as the iPhone has many of these functionalities.

I think that this technology can be very beneficial for more niche situations, like mechanics, healthcare, as well as field jobs in farming. But, the adoption for day-to-day use should be further evaluated to understand where the true value lies and whether there is a willingness-to-pay. It feels like it’s a solution in search of a problem.

 

References 

Porsche introduces “Tech live look” augmented reality smart glasses. Porsche Newsroom. (n.d.). https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/company/porsche-tech-live-look-augmented-reality-smart-glasses-north-america-dealerships-technology-high-tech-software-14517.html
Gibbs, S. (2025, September 18). Meta announces first Ray-Ban Smart glasses with in-built augmented reality display. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/17/meta-ray-ban-smart-glasses
Ting Li, Wang, J., & Fei Wu. (2022). How One Airline Is Using AR to Improve Operations. Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, 1–6.