Are you running out of time to make your shopping list or are you out of inspiration? Now, a robot is able to do it for you. Named "Hopla", it will be accessible from Friday on the homepage of the Carrefour website. All you have to do is start a conversation with this smart assistant and wait a few seconds to get a shopping list, recipes or for it to compose your basket itself.
Concretely, you can send him a request, like this one: "I do not know what to eat next week, there are four of us and I have a budget of 50 €." Hopla then executes and displays five recipes, from spaghetti bolognese, zucchini gratin, to mushroom omelette. He then lists the ingredients to make these dishes, while taking into account common products that you would have at home such as salt, pepper or olive oil. Once the products are displayed, they are added in one click to your cart and you just have to order and pick them up in store or at your home. Your shopping is done in the blink of an eye.
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'Getting ahead of the curve'
To achieve this technology, Carrefour has partnered with the Open AI group, creator of the ChatGPT artificial intelligence. "We are the first to use this technology in France," said Alexandre Bompard on Thursday during the presentation of the project. For the CEO of Carrefour, the goal is to "get a head start and invent the commerce of tomorrow". The company has thus acquired experts in artificial intelligence, who have been working for five weeks on this initiative.
In order to avoid any drift of artificial intelligence, the team restricted ChatGPT to answer only food-related questions. "I am not authorized to respond," he writes if the request is off topic. The experts also sent him all the necessary codes to offer a personalized experience to the user. Customers have the opportunity to ask for organic, gluten-free or vegetarian items. Note that no data is transmitted to Open AI, except for discussions with the robot.
Regarding the proposed recipes, the Carrefour teams assure it, the objective is to promote anti-waste and "eat better", while "aligning with the season", especially for fruits and vegetables. Regarding the products highlighted, it is "the most bought" or the "most clicked" on the site, explains the group. To change brands, simply click on a reference to see similar products.
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The commerce sector turns to AI
If artificial intelligence saves customers time, it is also beneficial for employees and the marketing aspect of the group. Indeed, in just a week and a half, ChatGPT has enriched the product sheets with more than 2000 Carrefour brand references. Title, description, nutritional values... everything was written by artificial intelligence, validated by Carrefour and published on its website. This is a significant time saver for the group but also for the manufacturers who made these products.
While this is an innovation in France, Carrefour is not the only company to trust "generative" artificial intelligence. Coca-Cola announced its collaboration with ChatGPT last February. "We see opportunities to improve our marketing through cutting-edge AI while exploring ways to improve our operations and business capabilities," CEO James Quincy said in a statement. The e-commerce site publisher Shopify also integrated ChatGPT on its site on March 1st. Like Carrefour, technology is used to generate responses to customers and advise them on the products best suited to their demand.
The American company Instacart, which delivers food products, has also been using artificial intelligence since March. On the same model as Carrefour, users can ask questions about food, ask for recipe ideas or establish a list of healthy ingredients. For the French group, the first customer feedback in the coming days will allow it to enrich its Hopla robot and refine its responses. It remains to be seen whether other retailers will follow Carrefour's lead to develop tomorrow's consumption.