The future of retail is in AI. At least e-commerce companies are betting on AI.
Big companies like eBay and Amazon, as well as emerging startups, are building AI tools that will change the way people shop online. Social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram are also introducing AI to help engage more people with shop features. Additionally, AI can help e-commerce companies reduce operating expenses.
Businesses aren't the only ones using AI. Merchants using these sites also use AI. Amazon and Shopify sellers use it to save time, understand their customers better, and increase profit margins.
Insider has identified the top 100 people making AI intelligent. Here are our top picks for e-commerce:
Miqdad Jafar, Shopify
Jaffer leads the team that embeds AI across Shopify, powering the online stores of millions of merchants. His work includes launching his Shopify Magic, his suite of AI tools aimed at helping merchants run their businesses, using a combination of Shopify data and his ChatGPT tool from OpenAI. included. Jaffer's team has also launched an in-app shopping assistant called Shop.ai and is working on another chat assistant product called Sidekick. “Entrepreneurship is difficult because there are so many things you have to learn and become an expert on,” Jaffer told his Business Insider. “I’m developing purpose-built AI innovations that make entrepreneurship accessible to everyone.”
Prakar Mehrotra, Walmart
Mehrotra is Walmart's vice president of applied AI. He is one of the most recognized leaders in the field of AI and machine learning, and for his work in advanced analytics and management science, he led a team that won him the 2023 INFORMS Franz Edelman Award. was awarded. At Walmart, his team oversees all aspects of merchandising, including assortment, pricing, and inventory management. Prior to Walmart, Mr. Mehrotra was chief data scientist at Uber, and he worked as a data scientist at X, formerly known as Twitter.
Nitzan Mekel Bobrov, eBay
Mekel-Bobrov, chief AI officer at eBay, is developing an AI-first culture in the e-commerce market. He launched the Office of Responsible AI to define AI best practices across the company. eBay's AI tools make it easier to list products, enable 3D imaging, improve buyer search results through natural language search, and create AI-generated products for product categories such as electronics and motor parts. Contains content. Previously, he held leadership roles at Booking.com, Capital One, and Boston Scientific. “Rather than directing users to another website or product page, these sources will now provide users with information,” Mekel Bobrov said. “This paradigm shift will completely change e-commerce.”
Rohit Prasad, Amazon
Prasad was recently promoted to lead Amazon's new artificial general intelligence group. As Amazon's senior vice president and chief scientist, Prasad is responsible for creating the company's “most ambitious” and “most extensive” large-scale language model, according to an internal email from June. As part of the promotion, Prasad now reports directly to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. Prasad previously spent about 10 years on Amazon's Alexa team, quickly rising through the ranks to eventually lead the company's Alexa business. He helped build Alexa's conversational AI research division. Prior to that, he was the director of Alexa's machine learning team.
Shreya Shankar, Alta
Shankar, who studied computer science at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, was the first machine learning engineer at Viaduct, an automotive health analytics company. Prior to that, he held engineering jobs at Google Brain and Facebook. Mr. Shankar is currently the Chief Scientist at Alta, a stealth e-commerce startup building a foundational model for the fashion sector. On his personal website, Shankar says he is interested in “practical applications of machine learning (ML) and solving vexing data management challenges.”
Nikko Strom, Amazon
Strom is Amazon's vice president and distinguished scientist, primarily working on Alexa's AI and voice technology. He was a founding member of the team that built Amazon's Echo device and his Alexa voice assistant. Mr. Strom has over 30 years of experience in his AI and automatic speech recognition. He has worked at Amazon for over 12 years, and before that he worked at Microsoft and Tellme Networks. A former colleague of Mr. Strom described him as “quietly a very influential person at Amazon.”
Raquel Urtasun, Wabi
At Waabi, Urtasun is leading an effort to revolutionize trucking by teaching virtual self-driving cars within an AI-generated simulator. This system allows you to train your technology without testing it on the road. “This breakthrough technology can be leveraged in a variety of use cases beyond trucking,” Urtasun said. Urtasun has spent more than 20 years on AI. Prior to founding Waabi, she served as Principal Scientist and Head of Research and Development at Uber's Advanced Technologies Group. She co-founded her Vector Institute, a research organization that studies AI and teaches computer science at the University of Toronto.