Black Friday deals… with AI of course!

3 innovation and digital news in 1 minute. Every Monday. Episode 362

Klarna AI-based shopping tools

Klarna launches a number of AI-based shopping tools: Shoppable Video, In-store scanning and the flagship feature Shopping Lens (launched in October). Shopping Lens enables users to take a picture of any item around them and upload it — Klarna then shows this or similar items and the best deal to get it. Based on the (mega) search in Klarna, search of all brands available. Opinion: Klarna uses AI to translate visual into text and search for it. This way it can visually identify over 10 million items and match these with over 50 million store offers. Imagine this use case: the person next to you in the subway has these really cool shoes — snap a picture, Klarna will find an offer for you.

So far available in US, UK, Germany and Scandinavia.

Little Birdie helps saving without effort

Little Birdie is an Australian e-commerce start-up price-checking of over 70 million products and then showcasing the best deals. The start-up highlights current sale events, price drops and vouchers across Australia.
To get the most relevant results, Little Birdie lets users choose brands and stores to follow — or, on top of that, other members. Members can see product/brand/store reviews and insights to determine whether to take on a deal or not. Opinion: Finally — they just released a Chrome extension that automatically scans for lower prices while shopping. If they find something, the window automatically pops up, no need to check. Perfect for Christmas shopping ;)

“Three ways to save”: via website, app, and the extension. And the start-up earning a commission from every purchase made.

DealBot by Future Publishing

UK Future Publishing (well-known for comparision site gocompare and tech blogs) presents an own AI deal bot to scan articles and product recommendations of its own publications. These include What HiFI, Techradar, LaptopMag and many more, focus on tech products and gadgets like computers or cameras. Opinion: Limited in product recommendation, products are pre-selected by the editorial team who write blog articles about them. Users still get many product recommendations because the DealBot aggregates from all of Future Publishing’s publications (different niche websites/blogs from tech to fashion and lifestyle).

The tool was created with upcoming blackweek in mind.