IBM Opens Watson Experience Center In San Francisco

How Watson Helps Retailers During the Holiday Season

This holiday season, retailers are increasingly turning to Watson to better understand, connect with, and create superior experiences for in-store shoppers. IBM this week announced the pilots of Watson-enabled mobile concierges at both Mall of America, the largest commercial shopping center in the U.S., located in Bloomington, Minn., and Fashion Island, a high-end shopping mall in Newport Beach, Calif.

Mall of America’s “E.L.F.” and Fashion Island’s “At Your Service” both tap into Watson, via Satisfi, to enable customers to manage a variety of holiday shopping needs in natural language from their mobile devices. Satisfi is a location-based intelligent engagement platform that combines the speed and accuracy of automation and the personality of a live person. For example:

“E.L.F.,” a holiday-themed chatbot, uses Watson to help guests plan more personalized shopping experiences, understanding and interpreting guest inquiries and sentiments as they interact either through Facebook or the mobile browser on their phone. E.L.F. may ask guests how much time they have to spend at Mall of America or what types of things they like to do in order to deliver customized shopping suggestions.

“At Your Service,” an SMS-based mobile concierge, uses Watson to help guests shop and navigate the shopping center itself, offering seamless access to fast information and creating an enhanced directory right at your fingertips. Guests can simply text (949) 734-7364 and ask questions, ranging from “Where is Neiman Marcus located?” to “Where can I valet?” and receive tailored responses to find stores, facilities, deals, etc.

Both solutions leverage the speed and simplicity of the Watson Conversation API to engage consumers in a natural language. They also follow on the success of Satisfi and IBM Watson’s first pilot with Macy’s from this past summer called “Macy’s On Call” and highlight how consumers are increasingly turning to their mobile devices to help navigate in-store shopping.

We’ve only begun to investigate the possibilities of a huge, connected, cognitive brain like Watson’s –one that can fill in the blanks to virtually anything we need, in any sector, on any topic, we can imagine. And if you want to go visit this brain and ask it a few questions in person, you can now do it at 505 Howard Street, San Francisco, Calif.

Just remember to make an appointment.

Originally published on eWeek