Tag: amazon

Amazon Launches New “Amazon Connect” Service To Transform Call Centers With A.I.

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon has launched a new service on its Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform that aims to leverages its AI smarts to transform call centers. The new service, dubbed Amazon Connect, uses the same technology used by Amazon.com’s own customer service system to route and manage calls using speech recognition and artificial intelligence. This will allow callers to simply state their issues instead of having to listen to long lists of menu options and figure out which one is closest to what they need. The service works with existing AWS services such as DynamoDB, Amazon Redshift, or Amazon Aurora, as well as third-party CRM and analytics services.

What Brands Need To Do
This new service comes at a time when more and more companies are starting to experiment with AI-powered solutiAons in their business and marketing practices. In January, Toyota launched a campaign that is partially generated by IBM’s machine learning program Watson, and last month, H&R Block integrated Watson into its tax filing system to helping people maximize their tax returns. As AI and machine learning technologies continue to develop, brands need to explore the kind of enhanced customer service and product recommendations that AI-powered CRM solutions are set to bring.

 

Source: Business Wire

Amazon Plans More Brick-And-Mortar Stores To Sell Electronics And Furniture

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
As reported by the New York Times, Amazon is “exploring” the possibility of opening more tech-powered brick-and-mortar stores to sell furniture, home appliances, and consumer electronics. Augmented reality-powered tools will be installed in the furniture store for a virtual preview, whereas the planned electronics store that would be similar to the concept of Apple Store, but with a “heavy emphasis” on hardware and services like Echo speakers and Prime Video.

Amazon has already opened five physical bookstores across the country, with more planned to open later this year, including one in Manhattan. In addition, the ecommerce giant is also nearing the opening of its cashier-less grocery store concept of Amazon Go.

What Brands Need To Do
Make no mistake, Amazon is determined to make major inroads into the brick-and-mortar retail market after dominating the ecommerce market for years, and it has all the customer data and retail technologies to back it up. This imminent grand entry should sound the alarm for all retailers and CPG brands who rely on traditional retail distributions, who should have started preparing to compete with Amazon in the offline world yesterday. Walmart, for example, announced the launch of a tech incubator focused on virtual reality and artificial intelligence to boost its retail smarts. More retailers need to start equipping themselves with new technologies in order to deliver a digitally enhanced retail experience and fight off Amazon’s advances.

Source: New York Times

Amazon Extends Alexa Voice Shopping To Include Prime Now Deliveries

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon Prime members can ask Alexa to get their groceries delivered within hours, thanks to the latest expansion of the voice assistant’s shopping capabilities. By integrating Prime Now programs into Alexa, Amazon is pushing the envelope on Alexa’s ecommerce capabilities and make it more deeply ingrained in Prime members’ daily lives. Beyond grocery products, Alexa can also order fast deliveries for smaller items such as video games from local stores. Some cities, such as Seattle, Columbus, and Cincinnati, will even get booze delivery via Alexa.

What Brands Need To Do
As Amazon continues to improve Alexa’s capabilities and integrate it with existing services, users will likely get more comfortable with voice shopping, thus presenting a new dilemma for brands in reaching customers via a voice-based conversational interface like Alexa. Short of partnering with Amazon to put your products atop the voice search results, which Amazon has yet to start doing, a good solution is for brands to develop their own Alexa skills. For example, beer giant Anheuser-Busch recently launched an Alexa skill that guides users through various workout routines designed to burn off the calories of a beer, which is a cool way to establish a brand presence on Alexa devices while providing extra value to customers.

According to a report from analytics firm VoiceLabs, about 33 million voice-first devices will be in circulation by the end of 2017. Therefore, It is up to brands to start working with developers to figure out their brand voice and incorporate conversational tools into their marketing efforts.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills and chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The “Miller Time” Alexa Skill we developed is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience, supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: VentureBeat

 

Amazon Brings Alexa To iOS Via Main App Integration

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon has integrated Alexa into the iOS version of its main app, allowing iPhone and iPad users to interact with the popular voice assistant right on their mobile devices. IOS users can tap a microphone icon in the Amazon app to use Alexa to shop on Amazon.com by voice, play music and audiobooks, asking Alexa questions, checking the news, and accessing the 10,000 and counting Alexa skills, including the one we made for getting Miller Lite delivered to your door using Drizzly.

The move by Amazon makes Alexa available for a much wider audience who might not have Amazon Echo or Fire devices, expanding the reach and introduce more users to its ecosystem of Alexa-powered services and hardware products.This would help Amazon further conquer the digital assistant market and, in turn, give Amazon more conversational data to improve Alexa.

What Brands Need To Do
For brands, the expanded reach should make Alexa a more attractive platform to develop voice-based conversational experiences for. Earlier this week, Amazon announced it is applying promotional credits for developers that use Amazon Web Services for hosting Alexa skills, making it free for brands to build and host their Alexa skills.

According to a report from analytics firm VoiceLabs, about 33 million voice-first devices will be in circulation by the end of 2017. Therefore, It is up to brands to start working with developers to figure out their brand voice and incorporate conversational tools into their marketing efforts.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills and chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The “Miller Time” Alexa Skill we developed is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience, supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

Source: Ars Technica
Header image is a promotional image courtesy of Amazon

Intel’s Drone Fleet Shines Bright During Super Bowl Halftime Show

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
During the opening moments of last night’s Super Bowl halftime show, a fleet of over 300 drones amazingly swarmed and swirled in a smooth, coordinating manner to form various background images such as the U.S. flag to support Lady Gaga’s performance. The drones, dubbed “Shooting Star” and launched by Intel last year, are a foot across and weigh just eight ounces. The performance is coordinated by a central computer that can do unlimited UAV animations in three dimensions.

IBM wasn’t the only companies that brought drones to the Super Bowl broadcast. Amazon also teased its “delivery by drones” Prime Air service in its Super Bowl ad last night, telling customers to “look for it soon.” Previously, Intel has worked with Disney to deploy this drone fleet for performances at the Disney World at Orlando.

What Brands Need To Do
This marks a high-profile debut of drones for entertainment use on national television and heralds the great potential that drones are set to unleash across major industries including entertainment, logistics, travel, and agriculture. For brands in those industries, now is the time to start exploring the new use cases that coordinated UAVs can unlock and figure out how drones may be integrated into your services and content production. As drone fleet management continues to mature, we expect to see more interesting and exciting use cases of drones to emerge for brands to take advantage of.

 

Source: Wired

Header image courtesy of Intel’s YouTube

Amazon Ramps Up Paid Search And Launches Virtual Dash Buttons

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon is launching a paid search product as it seeks to monetize the heavy ecommerce traffic the site commands. A recent survey shows that nearly half of online shoppers start their search on Amazon, so it is only natural for the ecommerce giant to give Google, the undisputed leader in paid search, a run for its money. In addition to promoted search results, the Seattle-based ecommerce behemoth also says it also plans to create customized pages for brands not selling on Amazon. For example, auto marketers can create detailed product pages on Amazon that offer consumers more product information, reviews, and a link to set up test drives.

In related news, Amazon is also adding virtual Dash Buttons” to the home page of its website and mobile apps. Introduced in April 2015, Dash Buttons are branded, connected physical buttons that Amazon Prime customers can push for a quick reordering. Now with the virtual buttons that Amazon shoppers can customize based on their preferences, Amazon is making one-click habitual reordering even easier and readily accessible.

\What Brands Need To Do
Amazon’s two new products both aim to leverage its massive scale to further its market dominance and lock in online shoppers. For brands selling on Amazon, the paid search ads may be worth a try for a short-term boost in visibility. The Dash Button, on the other hand, is a great tool for brands to develop and maintain consumer loyalty by enabling convenient reordering. For brands with CPG  products, it would be wise to work with Amazon to develop their own branded buttons to cultivate a long-term relationship with consumers.With the popularization of connected devices, we expect to see more automatic replenishment services like Amazon Dash pop up in the near future.

 

Source: AdExchanger & ARS Technina

Wynn Las Vegas Hotel To Upgrade Every Room With An Amazon Echo

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon announced on Wednesday that it is partnering with the Wynn Las Vegas Hotel to put Amazon Echo smart speakers in its over 4,700 rooms by the summer of 2017. At launch, hotel guests will be able to talk to Echo’s Alexa voice technology to control the room’s lighting, temperature, TV, and curtains. More features are planned to be added in the future, including a Wynn Las Vegas personal assistant and music streaming.

What Brands Should Do
This is a great marketing move for both parties as it not only provides Wynn customers with a frictionless, modernized hotel room experience that makes it stands out from the peers, it also helps Amazon introduce Echo and Alexa to a wider range of consumers. Conversational smart home device is a natural fit for hospitality brands looking to update their customer experience. Brands need to start exploring these conversation-driven platforms for integrations today as more mainstream consumers will soon become reachable via these voice-based devices.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills and chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The NiroBot we built in collaboration with Ansible for Kia is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on messaging apps and other conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client and learning opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: VentureBeat

Amazon Brings Shopping To TV For Prime Members With Apple TV App

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon has released an Apple TV app to let Prime members browse and shop from the comfort of their living room couches. By logging into their tvOS app via the four-digit code generated by their mobile app, Apple TV users can browse and search for products, see product details, and read reviews for millions of products available on Amazon. Prime membership is required to make a purchase on the Apple TV app. The home page of the app features a carousel of Amazon-curated collections, including holiday gift guides and other various packs.

What Brands Should Do
Amazon enjoys some unique advantages in transforming TV into a direct sales channel, given its massive scale and the ability to seamlessly integrate ecommerce functionality into the TV streaming devices by syncing up users’ Prime accounts and enabling one-click purchases. And the latest Apple TV model enables ecommerce brands to reach viewers via dedicated apps. For brands that are currently selling on Amazon, it may be worthwhile to tap into these new TV shopping initiatives to get a better understanding of the emerging shoppable TV experience. To read more on how brands can reach shoppers on OTT platforms with shopping apps and branded content, please check out the Appified TV section in our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: TechCrunch

GE Unveils A Futuristic Circular Lamp With Alexa Integration

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
GE has unveiled a futuristic circular lamp that will be able to respond to voice command thanks to its integration with Amazon’s Alexa. Essentially an Echo Dot with a funky LED light hoop on top, the lamp also comes with a speaker that allows Alexa to respond to your requests and commands, as well as built-in voice control over the lamp. GE says it is expecting to ship this product in Q2 2017.

What Brands Should Do
As Amazon started allowing third-party companies to build Alexa into their own products, We expect to see more Alexa-enabled smart home and IoT devices in the coming months. This would no doubt push conversational interfaces more deeply into consumer’s daily lives, upending the way that consumers interact with digital devices and creating a new paradigm for brand-consumer interaction. As Amazon continues to expand the underlying deep learning technologies to more services, it is time for brands seeking to stay ahead of the digital curve to start exploring how incorporating conversational interfaces may help improve the customer experience.

The Lab has extensive experience with building Alexa skills for brands. If you’re interested in learning more about this or have a client opportunity, please reach out to our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: The Verge

Lead image is a promotional image courtesy of GE

Amazon Trials Checkout-Free Physical Retail Experience

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon has started testing an innovative take on brick-and-mortar retail with a grocery store dubbed Amazon Go in Seattle that has no cashier or checkout line. Instead, the 1,800-square-foot store is blanketed with motion-capturing cameras and sensors, which allows it to leverage a powerful combination of computer vision and deep machine learning to keep track of the goods on and off the shelves, recognize each visitor, and create a virtual shopping cart on their phone. Once they are done shopping, they can just walk out of the store, confirm their purchases on their phones via automated receipts, and pay with their Amazon accounts. The store is only open to Amazon employees at the moment, but the company says it will be open to the public in early 2017.

What Retailers Should Do
This launch marks a crucial step in Amazon’s ambitious expansion into physical retail after the ecommerce giant tested the water with a few branded bookstores in select cities. More importantly, it unveils Amazon’s inspired vision for the future of retail as it proposes a frictionless, mobile powered shopping experience that eliminates one of the worst parts of grocery shopping – waiting in line for checkout.

While Amazon’s approach may seem a bit radical to some, there is no denying that smartphones are bringing a myriad of new possibilities into creating better in-store experiences. Walgreens, for example, has launched two initiatives aimed at delivering a more personalized shopping experience via its branded mobile app. Other retailers may not have the resources to attempt what Amazon is testing, but they need to take a cue and start leveraging mobile technologies to modernize their retail experiences.

For more information on how retailers can effectively reach connected consumers by taking a mobile-powered, omnichannel approach, check out the Boundless Retail section in our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: VentureBeat

Lead image is a screen capture from Amazon’s YouTube Video