"Volume" is the most intuitive feeling for many people about this year's 618. Not only low prices, anchors, and discounts, but also e-commerce platforms, consumer brands, and technology companies are also involved in AI. Various companies have applied AIGC, ChatGPT, and large language models in different links of product production, promotion, and sales.

"The anchor in the live broadcast room is AI. You can customize an exclusive digital person for 200 yuan, which saves a lot of money." , Comprehensive 'crawling'; customers' digital information, accurately push the required products", "AI-designed products have been put on the shelves"...

On the eve of 6.18, Taobao, JD.com, Kuaishou, and Baidu rushed to deploy AI customer service and AI shopping guides; Yili, Wanglaoji, Zhong Xuegao, Zhou Heiya and other brands launched AI packaging, AI advertising, and AI recipes.

618 has ended, but judging from the current market feedback, the degree of AI participation is visible to the naked eye, but the effect brought by AI does not seem to be significant. No brand has achieved a breakthrough by relying on AI. AI can be used to reverse the "decline".

01 E-commerce platform set off AI "battle"

On the eve of the big promotion, in addition to the discounts given to merchants and users during the 618 period, major e-commerce platforms are also telling stories about AI.

JD.com fired the first AI shot. On May 22, JD Cloud (a technology brand under JD.com) launched the "Free Digital Human Live Broadcasting Room Convocation" plan. During the promotion period, it will create "AI anchors" and "digital clones" for some JD.com stores. At the same time, JD Cloud launched ChatJD with reference to ChatGPT, laying out intelligent dialogue customer service.

Taobao followed closely behind. On May 23, Taobao Tmall launched the "AI Ecological Partner Program", applying AI in store opening and decoration, product image creativity, marketing planning and promotion, content organization and creation, etc., in terms of content, data and customer service. Domain provides intelligent generative services for merchants.

Kuaishou also announced that it will use AI technology to provide merchants with a search summary function, and use AI to empower the creation of product copywriting, pictures, advertising scripts, video special effects and other content.

It is worth noting that this year Baidu also entered 618 with an AI volume. At the "Baidu 618 AI Shopping Carnival" launch event, Baidu said that the newly opened e-commerce brand Baidu Best will launch new AI methods such as virtual shopping guide, AI shopping list, virtual live broadcast room, and AIGC planting grass.

After a trial run, Pineapple Finance found that, compared with other e-commerce platforms, currently, Baidu’s preferred AI applications are more reflected in product push, price comparison, shopping guide and customer service. When users are searching for product content, the smart shopping guide will recommend relevant products in a timely manner, recommending products from different platforms such as Taobao, Pinduoduo, and JD.com.

Source/Baidu

Judging from the actions of the above companies, the current e-commerce platform uses AI, and the target users are divided into merchants and users. According to A Zhe, who is engaged in e-commerce operations, it can be subdivided into four aspects: recommendation engine (using AI algorithm to provide personalized recommendations), search optimization (using AI to improve the accuracy of search engines), order processing (using AI to automatically process massive orders), data analysis (using AI to predict market trends).

He said that compared with other fields that are far away from consumers, the application scenarios of AI in e-commerce are simpler and more direct. Using a large amount of existing data, AI can be quickly and completely trained to provide consumers with adapted services faster .

02 Brand: Roll Packaging, Roll Advertising

In addition to e-commerce platforms launching AI functions first during the 618 period, a large number of brands have also joined the ranks of the AI war, launching AI products, launching AI packaging, AI advertisements, and AI images.

FMCG brands were the first to test AI. When ChatGPT became popular, Zhong Xuegao launched a new AI-led product series "Sa'Saa". According to the official introduction, the product name, taste and packaging design were generated using ChatGPT and Wenxin Yiyan, a variety of AI-generated software. .

More brands choose to use AI as a design tool to work hard on packaging.

The first is to use AI to design product packaging. Yili launched 6 types of AI-designed packaging with the theme of Chinese mountains and rivers. According to the official statement, from the concept to the visual design of the series of packaging, AI is involved or even led; Bravely World superX also released four new limited-edition canned beer packaging Design, two of which are designed by AI, and two of which are designed by human designers, there is not much visual difference between the two. In addition, brands such as Coca-Cola, Wanglaoji, Anmuxi, and Nestle have also released AI packaging.

CC, a food packaging designer, introduced to Pineapple Finance that AI packaging design is also the application field where brands use AI the most. With the help of ChatGPT, Midjourney, Package Design AI and other AI text and image generation software for product design, it meets the younger and more fashionable visual production needs and consumer needs. More importantly, the advantage of intelligent image generation lies in its fast speed, high degree of integration, strong innovation, and the ability to generate a sufficient number of alternatives in a short period of time.

CC believes that AI-assisted product design will be the mainstream in the future.

The second is to use AI to design advertisements. During the 6.18 promotion period, Baidu’s AI painting tool, Wenxinyige, cooperated with JD.com to launch the first AI offline advertisement in the e-commerce industry, and jointly released pictures and texts of "College Entrance Blessings" with Zhou Hei Ya, Wang Laoji, Xu Fuji and other brands "Advertising; Wufangzhai combines AI + traditional culture to launch video advertisements.

Yuzi, the creative planning assistant of an advertising company, introduced that AI can participate in the market research and data analysis before the product goes online; the packaging design and naming during the product production process; and the entire process of product promotion after the product goes online. "Ask the AI if you are undecided; ask the AI if you have no idea about the plan; ask the AI if you have no inspiration when writing a copy."

Yuzu added, "Compared with the plan given by the designer, AI advertising saves 30% of the cost and 70% of the time, which is very suitable for shopping nodes with tight time and urgent tasks."

**03 Volume 618 AI, the effect is not working? **

Different from technology companies fighting AI, regardless of e-commerce platforms or brands, the purpose of rolling out AI in the 618 promotion is not only to create gimmicks to attract attention, but also to reduce costs and increase efficiency. How effective is it?

Take the "AI anchor" that sparked heated discussions on 618 this year as an example. Many live broadcast rooms with goods have begun to use "digital people" to bring goods, and a "digital human avatar" can be customized for 200 yuan. Because it can be broadcast live 24 hours a day, there is no need to worry about the anchor "collapsing the house", etc., which is regarded as a cost-effective form of delivery. The quotation given by a digital human production company shows that the cost of customizing an AI anchor on the market is currently around 10,000 yuan for a one-year use period. From this point of view, compared with real anchors, AI anchors do save money.

But from the current market acceptance and the limitations of AI anchor itself, saving money does not necessarily mean "easy to use".

In the current live broadcasting, although the wind of AI anchors is in full swing, there are still a few who actually land in the live broadcast room. Moreover, most AI anchors have the problems of single expression, mechanical language, stiff movements, and poor interaction. There are only a handful of fans watching, and the driving effect on GMV is even more limited.

From the perspective of efficiency, the efficiency improvement brought by AI to e-commerce and brands is not obvious.

"In the short term, the interest in AI in the capital market is on the rise. The linkage effect that AI brings to e-commerce, brands, and merchants is obvious. Especially the top platforms, based on the early AIGC content and data pools, can bring a new wave. Traffic.” Xiao Kai, who pays attention to e-commerce investment, said, but in the long run, the application of AI on e-commerce platforms is still in the simple dialogue and algorithm recommendation, and the gap with the existing technologies is not obvious.

In addition, the reason why consumers do not have much perception of AI products in 618 is also related to the limitations of AI and the failure of products to be launched.

Pineapple Finance and Economics tried to use several AI drawing software at home and abroad to design product packaging, and found that the existing problems include: AI’s lack of understanding of detailed vocabulary; designers need to train repeatedly for a long time; AI designs are mostly planar, and 3D renderings are poor; Text deformation and distortion, etc.

Designer CC added that the current AI-assisted software is still not up to the level of finished drafts, and some of the packaging, advertisements, and copywriting designed by AI do not even comply with advertising laws and design specifications, and there are no small risks.

There is no doubt that the fiery AI has injected new impetus into this year's 618. The "frenzy" of all parties reflects the trend that AI has begun to enter the daily life of the public. However, in the wave of AI, it is important who can take the first step, but it is important who can take every next step well.

What 618 needs is not only a shallow "packaging" of AI. It is still unknown whether AI will bring further innovations to the next 618, or whether it will stop here.