Artificial Intelligence Trends in 2021
Tags: ai
Published: 2021-06-20 06:37:01

Artificial Intelligence is the most anticipated concept ever introduced in the tech world. We hear about AI quite often nowadays. Have you ever thought about why humans have fallen for Artificial Intelligence? In order to know the answer, let’s go back to the time period where it started from.

AI came into existence in the 1950s and at that time it was limited to the educational field. No one ever assumed that artificial intelligence would become a central part of our everyday life.

**According to a recent report by Tech Pro:**
*24% of the businesses are already using AI and more companies are planning to use it in the coming years.*

*63% of the business owners believe that AI is beneficial to them.*

*57% of the people believe that AI will go main stream in next 5 to 10 years.*

Enormous tech oriented companies like Microsoft, Google and Facebook are also indulging AI in their daily operations. Google acquired an AI company ‘Deepmind technologies limited’ and made a breakthrough in machine generated speech. Deepmind is also helping Google to cut down on its electricity bills. Microsoft also made a few progressions in deep learning by releasing its Cognitive toolkit.

This shows the significance of Artificial Intelligence in the tech industry. 2016 was a year of tremendous innovation as it witnessed lots of AI investment in both big companies and startups.

##Artificial Intelligence Trends 2021##
Since it’s the mid of 2021 and the importance of AI is growing day by day, the tech exerts have started pouring some light on AI trends we are witnessing this year.

Here is the list…

###Chatbots & Virtual Assistants
The application of AI in eCommerce is expanding with every passing day. Many online retailers are applying artificial intelligence technology in their operations to boost revenue and generate leads. Thus, it is also becoming essential for businesses to stay in touch with customers 24*7. 

Specialized eCommerce chatbots and virtual assistants can simplify the workflow and allow business owners to provide all-around support to their customers. Chatbot technology is evolving to deliver the best for eCommerce businesses. From managing order and shipment processing to inventory, stock management tasks, and returns, and there is a lot a chatbot can do.

Conversational AI chatbots and virtual assistants help to automate and streamline activities that enable your business to grow in upcoming years. Using AI chatbots in eCommerce, you can craft more relevant marketing services by collecting its data. And you can also reach them through mail and messages to inform them about special offers, discounts, etc.

[Shiprocket’s Sania](https://www.shiprocket.in/blog/shiprocket-product-updates-april-2020/#Have_questions_-_Ask_our_conversational_chatbot_Sania) is a smart chatbot based on AI technology. It helps you with the precise answers for your shipment pickup status, delivery delays, NDR, and weight discrepancy issues. Get all the help from this chatbot for knowing your wallet balance, invoice query, or a delayed COD remittance. Other than that, the Shiprocket Sania chatbot is available 24*7 to help users.  

###Artificial Intelligence In App Development###
Previously, apps developed for Android were extremely fragmented. Now, the entire network has become much more assimilated.
Nowadays, incorporating voice interfaces into apps have become an integral part of mobile networks. This has taken place because of tremendous growth in IoT. In 2014, approximately four billion connected things were used.

Virtual assistant support has also been added to applications by the developers. Prisma and Google Allo are two of the popular apps which are using AI.

###AI-Driven User Experience###
The use cases of AI in eCommerce are gradually advancing from simple to more complex ones. eCommerce companies are now leveraging AI-driven user experience to engage better with customers who expect personalized shopping and support on an online store.

Using advanced AI technologies, such as robotics process automation, recommendation engine, face recognition, NLP, and data-based systems, companies deliver a more humanized and personalized customer experience. Moreover, they provide a better user experience through product recommendations, emotional intelligence, instant customer support, automation, integrity, and trust.

Artificial Intelligence convergence with AR and VR enables to identify the user’s priority on digital channels and enrich UX. With advanced predictive analytics, eCommerce companies can offer a better dashboard for managing supply chain operations and inventory management. The better user experience provides customers more visibility on the availability of products and order fulfillment.

For instance, you can look at [Shiprocket’s CORE](https://www.shiprocket.in/features/recommendation-engine/), a courier recommendation engine based on AI and machine learning. It helps suppliers to determine the best courier partner for a shipment. It gives the courier partners recommendations based upon their past pickup & delivery performances, COD remittance, and return order management.

###The Internet of Things (IoT)###
IoT has got a huge coverage in recent years and people are also getting used to it. However, without artificial intelligence a device cannot be called a smart device. Let’s look at it clearly by putting it in a simple way:

*Smart Device=Artificial Intelligence + Internet of Things*

Smart devices will also human interactions. It involves not only recognizing irregular behavior but also verbal and facial expression. Therefore, AI has a significant role in transforming a device into smart device.

The concept of smart homes will also gain popularity in the upcoming time period. After all, who does want his/her appliances connected in a unified system and helping it verbally? 

###Price Forecasting###
Dynamic pricing is used in the eCommerce industry for deciding the pricing of your products. With AI-based self-learning algorithms, you can manage large quantities of data and understand all possible differences between the variables and the prices. 

It helps you get the most relevant price for your products. The benefits of using AI in eCommerce for dynamic pricing are increased profits and revenue because eCommerce business owners can decide the price for their products by competition, sales volumes, market trends, etc. 

AI algorithms for price forecasting are the future of the retail industry. By considering automated analytics software, you can easily compare and analyze thousands of relationships between the products in a portfolio. AI in eCommerce automates labor-consuming tasks of price analysis and allows you to focus on other business operations. 

Price prediction is useful for retail businesses as it can facilitate decision-making in price management operations, which will help in long-term planning.

###Improved Visual Search###
Why is visual search most important to online retailers? It is most helpful for businesses as it enhances their eCommerce sites with a visual search that helps increase their revenue and improves customer experience. That’s an impressive contribution of AI in eCommerce. In the rapidly growing online shopping world, AI-enabled visual search capabilities play an integral role in capturing customers’ imaginations. 

With visual searchability, a customer searches for a product using an image instead of text or keywords. This technology allows shoppers to take a photo of something they want to buy and upload it to a visual search engine such as Google Images or Pinterest. The visual search engine will help them find a product online and recommend products close to their choice.

So this is how AI in eCommerce enhances the visual search process. The AI programs can develop image recognition models based on the customer’s preferences. It works by getting subjective values like what customers find relevant, styles they embrace, personal tastes, and styles from individual to individual. 

It’s one of the main reasons industry players like Facebook and Google are using visual search to enhance visual search accuracy and improve the customer experience. 

###Warehouse Technology###
Artificial Intelligence adds more value to the [eCommerce warehouse management](https://fulfillment.shiprocket.in/blog/warehousing-and-fulfillment-for-sme/) through natural language processing, robotics, and computer vision technology. AI and Machine learning algorithms learn from experience and make practical decisions for warehouse management. The technology notices patterns using sensors and suggests actions for the faster replenishment of out-of-stock items and better inventory positioning.

AI in eCommerce also enables using wearable technology in warehouses to work hands-free and more safely. The smart wearable glasses are equipped with cameras that use AI-enabled computer vision to recognize barcodes, which can be easily placed around the warehouse for product tracking.

Lastly, AI and robotics lend a physical presence and movement in the real world. AI robots’ in warehouses can handle different tasks such as picking/packaging, loading or unloading pallets, and/or moving boxes around the warehouse. As the use of AI in eCommerce continues to boom and become more advanced, we will see many of its applications for warehouse management. 

###Conclusion###
After viewing the discussion above, it can be concluded that AI is being incorporated in almost every industry. This is because its benefits outweigh its drawbacks.

Probably the greatest advantage to utilizing machines with some degree of man-made consciousness is that they could be used to do important positions all the more effectively. Machines don't have to take breaks in the manner that people do. They don't have to rest, eat, or utilize the bathroom. This would permit organizations to deliver products 24 hours per day, 365 days every year.

In addition to this, machines do not need to receive a paycheck every month. While they are very exorbitant to keep up and power, this expense is significantly not as much as what a whole organization loaded with human representatives would need to be paid. The expenses are additionally limited and controlled.

If you want to stay ahead of the competition, make sure that you are incorporating these trends. For more information on AI Trends for eCommerce contact team [Shiprocket Fulfillment](https://fulfillment.shiprocket.in/).