Shinsegae Department Store's personalized artificial intelligence (AI) analysis technology, developed in collaboration with Seoul National University, has been recognized for its excellence at a leading global AI conference.
On July 23, Shinsegae announced that its 'AI-based personalized customer analysis technology,' developed over a year with the university's Graduate School of Data Science, was accepted as a paper at the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) this month.
This marks the first time a research outcome from a domestic department store has been included in ICML, a premier international academic conference where major tech companies and top university researchers present the latest AI technologies.
For this research, Shinsegae processed approximately 200 million shopping data points from both online and offline sources into 'AI-ready data' to enable the AI to understand and learn independently. The technology models complex variables, including not just purchase history but also store visit patterns and preferred brands, laying the groundwork for precise connections between customers and products.
With this technology, even when users open the same Shinsegae Department Store app, they will see completely different personalized screens. For instance, a 40-year-old man interested in sports might see travel packages for soccer matches and discounts on sports brands, while a 30-year-old woman who enjoys wine might receive recommendations for tours of Italian wine regions and limited-edition wine events at the top of her screen.
Building on this achievement, Shinsegae plans to introduce an 'AI Sales Agent' in its retail operations early next year. This system will serve as a 'work AI assistant' that helps staff develop marketing and promotional strategies by analyzing customer characteristics and purchasing patterns in real time.
Preliminary simulations based on this recommendation technology have shown that the average purchase amount per customer could increase by as much as 46%.
Lee Seong-hwan, Executive Director of Sales Strategy at Shinsegae Department Store, stated, "In the future, Shinsegae will continue to enhance customer experience and retail innovation based on AI technology, strengthening data-driven decision-making to create a new retail paradigm."
Meanwhile, the competition in AI among department stores is shifting from simple consultations and content creation to the decision-making stage in sales. Lotte Department Store is utilizing a conversational 'BI Agent' for customer analysis, while Hyundai Department Store has deployed an AI mentor named 'Hi,' trained on the work experiences of in-house experts.
The introduction of Shinsegae's AI Sales Agent is expected to intensify the competition in customer analysis and product planning among the three major department stores.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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