Flipkart bets big on generative AI to improve customer, seller experience

Walmart-owned e-commerce major Flipkart is betting big on generative AI (GenAI) applications to improve the experience of its customer and seller ecosystems. The company is leveraging this technology across the board to improve efficiency, an executive at the firm said.

“E-commerce is like having many sectors under a single roof…AI is applied in every aspect of e-commerce, from the supply chains to preventing fraud, to advertising, to improving the search experience,” said Mayur Datar, Chief Data Scientist, Flipkart.

Datar believes that, as the company builds scale, it will be able to improve on the returns on investment (ROI) it is witnessing from its AI bets.  

“Today, it (technology) is expensive, the underlying models are costly. We use a lot of in-house models but these also include training and hosting which require custom hardware like GPUs. However, costs are coming down and this will eventually be the net return on investment (ROI) positive. Even today, in many cases, it is the net ROI positive,” Datar said.

He added that Flipkart is leveraging GenAI tools to improve customer and seller experiences.

On the customer side, Datar said that Flipkart is implementing GenAI in cases such as creating its virtual assistant, dubbed Flippi. Although still in its early stages, the “offline style conversational shopping interface” provides customers with additional information about products, offers, and return policies.

To improve its search functions, the company is experimenting with applications such as multimodal search – which provides improved search through multimodal inputs like text, images, and speech. It is also working on improved intent understanding, which allows for better interpretation of search keywords. For instance, converting “bacho ke liye dress” to “dress for kids”.

Flipkart’s GenAI tools on the seller side, Datar said, include tools such as automated catalogue shoots – which enables sellers to convert images of products to what they would look like on a model using GenAI. The company is also using AI for stock image generation and extracting product attributes in an automated manner.