Getting a Grip on the Future of AI for Small Business

The mobile commerce market hit $156 billion in 2017, more than solidifying itself as the next big thing in e-commerce. And with more 68 percent of U.S. adults owning a smartphone, it’s really no surprise. More than ever people are using their mobile devices to make online purchases.

It’s a normalised part of society and one your business should capitalise on to ensure you’re able to compete in the marketplace. But just playing along with m-commerce isn’t enough.

The enormous market means you’re not the only one targeting mobile consumers.

To truly succeed in the m-commerce space, you need to stand out. And what’s the new best way to stand out? Artificial intelligence. Artificial Intelligence can help your business with everything from analysing data to refining your consumer experience.

We’ve reached the point where machine learning is more capable than humans. Let’s look through a few examples that show AI’s potential impact on your m-commerce strategy.

AI Meets M-Commerce

Before we get started with our examples, let’s take a moment to talk about why AI and m-commerce make the perfect marriage.

It’s all down to the evolution of smartphone technology and AI’s involvement. Since the very earliest iPhones Apple implemented AI into the iOS platform, normalizing machine learning to the general public.

Semantic analysis (computers telling the difference between words that have multiple meanings) offered users autocorrect suggestions while typing.

And while now we see iOS autocomplete software offer entire phrases, the initial autocorrect got people used to AI in their everyday lives.

Fast forward to today and Siri can control just about anything on your iPhone (or Google Assistant on Android phones). Every time you use your voice assistant to set a timer or make a phone call, you’re using AI.

Thanks to AI’s ubiquitous place on mobile phones, m-commerce shoppers won’t bat an eye when your store implements consumer-facing artificial intelligence. Consumers, after all, are trained to see AI as helpful.

AI’s Example Impact

E-commerce mobile apps have transformed the entire experience. Smartphone users can become m-commerce consumers at any time. If they feel like shopping in the middle of the night, they just grab their phone and make their purchase.

It’s excellent for businesses as you can sell products 24/7.

However, those same consumers probably don’t know much about your brand. And they expect that you’re there to help them. An astounding 75 percent of online consumers expect help within 5 minutes.

Unless you’re staffing customer support 24/7 (and you shouldn’t), AI is the only way to make those expectations a reality.

Enter AI chatbotsChatbots use natural language processing and semantic analysis to answer any and all consumer questions. They offer personalized responses based on previous purchases or even data collected from social media cookies.

Say someone visited your website at 4 am. The chatbot could respond with detailed product information and even recommendations based on that consumer’s place of residence, income level, age, job, and more.

Beyond chatbots, AI can also help your brand identify content that will help drive conversions.

Specific programs can take those same cookies that collect consumer information and organize the info into datasetsArtificial intelligence then takes those datasets and breaks them into demographics.

Each consumer fits within a demographic, and AI can then again use cookies and discern what content works best for each demographic. Put another way, AI tracks consumers, groups them into demographics, and then tracks which content responds well with each demographic.

The longer consumers stay on a page (bounce rate and click through rate) the better the material.

After you know what content performs you can start serving videos, blogs, and other content that aligns with your consumer demographics’ interests.

Implementing Your Own AI

Implementing AI into your m-commerce platform isn’t tricky, but instead comes down to understanding your options and what’s trending. The more you’re aware of the available options, the more you can stand out from the competition and see m-commerce success.

For designers and coders,

AI is indeed more exciting and challenging today, but then the rewards are worth their time and effort. AI professionals are not readily available. Those who do, get paid highly.

To help you stay ahead of other sellers, we’ve created this handy infographic detailing the top 5 AI trends in mobile commerce.

From chatbots to search, AI can revolutionise your m-commerce store.

Artificial intelligence has a bright future and now’s the time to capitalise on the trends taking over m-commerce.