Notes from Breakfast with the Disruptors, Featuring Retail AI Companies
KEY POINTS
- Coresight Research recently held its inaugural Breakfast with the Disruptors event, where eight startups that are applying artificial intelligence (AI) to solve retailers’ problems pitched their businesses to an estimated 400 guests. The event was hosted by Global Brands Group (GBG) in the Empire State Building in New York City and was sponsored by Celect, GBG and Li & Fung.
- The startup pitch competition was followed by a Coresight Research presentation on retail trends and what we can learn from companies in Asia. The pitches were judged by executives from Celect, GBG and FirstMark Capital, and GBG generously provided $2,500 in prize money for the winning startup.
- The judges convened at the end of the pitch session and awarded the prize to Findmine. While the judges deliberated, Coresight Research CEO and Founder Deborah Weinswig gave a presentation on 1Q18 retail trends and what we can learn from Asia.
- The date of our next Breakfast with the Disruptors event, which will feature several early-stage companies engaged in robotics, will be announced in June.
Event Sponsors
The event was generously sponsored by Celect, GBG and Li & Fung, and Celect generously provided $2,500 in prize money for the winning startup.
With technology developed out of MIT, Celect builds on a fundamental advance in customer-choice modeling. Its Choice Engine enables retail buyers, merchandisers, planners and inventory analysts to increase sales and margins, and reduce markdowns by placing the right product, in the right place, at the right time—across all channels. Its team of data scientists and retail professionals are passionate about helping its customers turn big data into actionable and insightful “smart data” and significantly improve same-store sales and increase online conversion.
Startup Presentations
The event commenced with the pitch competition. Here is a brief introduction of each of the startup participants.
Findmine’s technology scales a brand’s unique viewpoint across its entire organization. Its Complete the Look solution generates a complete outfit around each product, and retailers and brands using the automated styling solution have seen a 200% increase in shopper spend.
Linc Global builds advanced, commerce-specialized, customer-care automation software. Its platform leverages purpose-built AI to transform more than 90% of customer interactions into automated assistance across web, e-mail, SMS, messaging apps and voice platforms.
Markable is a leader in computer vision AI for fashion that helps fashion e-tailers improve conversion and increase average orders, and helps publishers monetize visual fashion content and improve engagement.
Personali’s AI platform enables retailers to target shoppers precisely with personalized incentives, optimizing sales growth and profitability.
Radius8 empowers retailers to dynamically merchandise online using the context of their physical stores and local market intelligence to drive online conversion and store foot traffic. The platform leverages local online browsing behaviors, in-store sales trends and inventory to intelligently build context based on location, maximizing the customer experience and increasing conversion.
StoreDNA is an integrated decision-making platform for retail executives overwhelmed by large amounts of data. It delivers dramatically improved performance through better product assortments, store layouts and visual merchandising, and through associate optimization.
Twiggle enables retailers’ search engines to function like an experienced salesperson would by employing advanced machine learning and natural language technologies to power next-generation e-commerce search and navigation experiences.
Wizer is a next-generation consumer insights company that combines deep expertise in AI with resource-rich market research to empower brands to take on strategic business challenges such as trend spotting, brand health and product innovation.
Coresight Research Presentation
While the judges deliberated, Coresight Research CEO and Founder Deborah Weinswig presented on 1Q18 retail trends and what we can learn from companies in Asia.
