Fashion brand Valentino incorporates AI into customer chat

Valentino is allowing customers to communicate with everyday language via its app.

The global fashion brand is deploying the GameOn intelligent chat platform in its “Unboxing Valentino” spring/summer promotion. Launched in March 2023, Unboxing Valentino is a showcase of stylists and artists in eight cities – New York, London, Paris, Milan, Dubai, Shanghai, Seoul and Tokyo – with a complementary digital experience.

The GameOn intelligent chat platform uses select elements of GPT trainable artificial intelligence (AI) technology to enable conversational interactions. For example, customers can type words and phrases like "shipping," "inspire me," or "style icon quiz" within the Valentino app to receive assistance with shopping activities such as customer care or product discovery.

[Read more: ChatGPT is coming – what it means for your enterprise]

The interactions will leverage GPT technology, within guardrails set by GameOn, to reduce transaction risk for Valentino and drive instantaneous, accurate and personalized feedback for customers.

"It's an honor to partner with Valentino on its Unboxing collection," said Richard Cheng, president of GameOn Technology. "As a leader in providing authentic brand-to-fan interactions for a bevy of major league sports teams, we're excited to bring our expertise to retail - starting with an iconic international fashion label. GameOn's platform will evoke a transformative online shopping experience while providing next-level engagement through personalized customer interactions."

Views on customer service automation vary by generation

According to a recent survey from artificial intelligence (AI) platform InRule, younger consumers in general have a more favorable view of customer service automation than older consumers.

This difference is most pronounced in differing responses from Boomer survey respondents and Gen Z respondents. For example:

• 40% of Gen Z respondents think automation helps yield stronger privacy and security. measures through stricter compliance, compared to 12% of boomer respondents.
• 41% of Gen Z respondents thought automation offers greater personalization, versus 20% of boomer respondents.
• 43% of Gen Z respondents believe automation improves customer support through quicker responses or shorter wait times, while only 28% of boomer respondents believe so.

However, the survey reveals general consumer distrust of next-generation AI technology, like ChatGPT:

• 59% of all respondents distrust generative chatbot technology.
• 47% of all respondents prefer humans over chatbots like ChatGPT during customer experience.
• Even as cutting-edge technology like ChatGPT continues to be released to improve experiences, 70% of respondents will still prefer to interact with and keep a human in the loop.