Andrew appeared on SFM and spoke to Alex Lewczuk about his latest partnership with Kingfisher on the Future of Retail and how consumers are adopting AI when they shop.
Interview Transcript
Alex Lewczuk
well, it’s fair to say that despite predictions of folk in the 20th century, we don’t actually have flying cars. We’re not all walking around in silver suits. But then again, we possibly do have a two tier society, as predicted by metropolis, which is close to celebrating its centenary as a motion picture. But there are lots of other things that are changing, including those two letters a and I, yes, we’re talking artificial intelligence, and we have two fabulous folk to actually share with us their own thoughts on how AI in particular is transforming the world of retail. Does this mean the end of window shopping as we know it? Possibly, or maybe a different kind of Windows comes into place to actually address this issue to fabulous folk, as we mentioned, leading Futurist. That’s Andrew grill, how are you? Andrew, Alex, hi. How are you great to connect with yourself as ever and chief AI officer at kingfisher. Mohsen gsampur, how are you? Mohsen, Hi, Alex, nice to be here. Excellent. Andrew, let’s turn to you first, because, as a Futurist, I mentioned some of the successes that have been seen over the last few years when it comes to obviously, the predictions of the future. Even Arthur C Clarke said that he didn’t actually envisage this screen based culture to be so prevalent the sort of thing that we’re doing today, surely the stuff of major fantasy in the 60s and 70s. But is this something, Andrew, from your own perspective, that you know, we are beginning to unpick and sort of see that when it comes to retail and our shopping habits, there are going to be big changes happening in the next few years. Well, as a Futurist, you said two of my favourite words, metropolis, and Arthur C Clarke, my famous Futurist, and even he, I don’t think didn’t predict where AI would end up. I think in the last three years, since chat GPT, we’ve seen something like 10 years of innovation, and everyone is scrambling to keep up, because every week it seems like there’s a new innovation from these AI platforms, but I think it’s making life a lot easier, and companies like Kingfisher are stepping up to the plate. They’re saying, What can we do with AI, not just to make the shopping experience better, but also to empower our colleagues, make life easier for us as well. So we’re seeing a lot of innovation. And they asked me to look at a huge topic, what is the future of retail? Was my exam question, and so I looked at interviews with key staff, key key experts. We also did some consumer research to really answer that question. And you’re right. Ai came up a lot as something that is going to drive the future of retail.
Alex Lewczuk
I mean, Mohsen, from your own perspective, is this something which you’ve always had a passion for? Was retail an area that you thought, well, I don’t really fancy challenging Elon Musk for his trips to Mars. I’m not too sure about obviously, the other sub orbital, extraterrestrial activities that can be going there. Let’s focus on retail.
Mohsen Ghasempour
I mean, retail is a complex operation, Alex, and you know, there are many decision has been made every day that impacts our customer colleagues. So anything, for me, it’s very important to see the impact in the real life. And when it comes to retail, you know, talking about our inner sort operation or back end operation for our colleagues, but also customer experience. These are all the areas that AI can have a massive impact on the life every day. You know, for us, of our colleague and our customers.
Alex Lewczuk
Now, there are folk who’ll be listening for this. Most of us say, but, but I like the case of going shopping and actually having the last minute cues as we head up to the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday seasons, etc. I like the stress that we actually have to go with where we’re battling for that sort of final system, etc. And AI might take that all away from me. Is that something that you need to build into the whole process? Or do you have those built in frustrations where you find but my Wi Fi isn’t working, AI isn’t functioning, that connects with us?
Mohsen Ghasempour
So, I mean, it’s the same as everything else, right? Especially when it comes to DIY, I think this story is slightly different, because the challenge around DIY, as you mentioned, sometimes there’s urgency that you need to, you know, fix a leak in, you know, your pipe, and it needs to be happening immediately. And sometimes you planning for your kitchen design, right? So, and it’s fascinating, and how AI can help in both ways. For example, in one of our initiatives, we have something we call lens, which is designed to help our customer to just very quickly to identify what they need, using a camera on their mobile phone, right? So you see something broken, you just take your photo and just boom, you can find the product you need with the help and advice to actually go and fix it. So again, is many, many different areas that you can deploy, AI, especially in our in our domain, which is quite exciting.
Alex Lewczuk
Andrew, looking at the perspective of many towns and cities, certainly in the UK, there’s the line saying, but everybody’s going online now, and so all our shops are deserted, or they’re handing over to hairdressers or gambling boutiques and so on, and we haven’t quite got that circle squared yet between still keeping city centres and town areas vibrant and living areas and ghost towns, basically. And there are folk might say, but AI is going to make this even worse? I disagree.
Andrew Grill
I think especially when it comes to home, improved. And we have a thing, and I mentioned this report called phygital, the joining of physical and digital. So yes, you can buy things online. When it comes to doing a home improvement project, there’s a lot of emotion involved, especially if it’s a large project and quite expensive. You want to go and see and feel and touch that. You want to get expert advice. What I think we’re going to see as the Store of the Future evolves, powered by technology, you’re going to be want to drawn to one of those being Q stores, because you can go there, you can look at the equipment, importantly, and we touched on this word AI. I think we’re going to move from artificial intelligence to augmented intelligence. Human in the loop. I want to talk to a human. I want to talk to a human who’s an expert. And we actually empower the colleagues in the store to be even smarter, to find out how that might look. But also we’re drawn to have an experience in the store. I might want to talk to someone else in my community that’s also had this kitchen renovation to see how it works. So I think when it comes to home improvement retail, those sorts of projects where you want to see how it looks, people will do some of the shopping online, but the friction won’t be there, because you’ll then go in store and continue your journey using AI inside the store.
Alex Lewczuk
And Mohsen, can you see a situation whereby, basically, sometimes you have customers with set ideas, and AI will do its very best to actually persuade them, and ultimately, maybe just tut noisily, shake its virtual head and say, Well, if you want to make that decision, it’s up to you.
Mohsen Ghasempour
So when that’s, that’s a that’s, you know, beauty of, you know, controlling AI under a company, you know, that’s the biggest difference between public models and what we build internally at Kingfisher and across brand, right? So have you full control of, you know, adjusting that AI agents to provide and guide the customer to the right direction, right? And as you mentioned, sometimes, you know, it is providing help and advice, sometimes it’s actually handing over to a human, as Andrew mentioned, to augment that kind of intelligence. But again, in both scenarios, you have full control to just use this technology in a very smart and responsible way to help the customer to get what they need to do.
Alex Lewczuk
Andrew Moses raised two key words, their control and obviously the customer from that perspective, and a lot of panics have been set up by the fact that AI takes away that control. Do you feel as though, actually, that’s a groundless fear, or is it just a case of, well, maybe those Luddites back in the day were right. They should have actually stopped the printing presses there
Andrew Grill
and then, well, I share some of the views, but when we did some consumer research, we surveyed 2000 UK consumers and asked them a bunch of questions to do with the future retail and they’re actually quite comfortable. 58% were saying they’d be quite comfortable to use AI. In fact, 38% said they would be happy to spend up to 99 pounds using the AI, making the decision for them. So I think what we’re seeing as consumers are saying, I’m not giving away all the control. I’ve played with chat, GPT and other tools. I understand how useful it can be. If you’re telling me it can actually help me with my home improvement journey. I’ll give you some control away right now. I want to see that you are trusted with that. But I think we’re going to see more and more humans saying, I’m going to let some of the inspiration, maybe some of the purchase, be done by my AI, and if it gets it right, I might trust it a bit more. But it’s, it’s early, early
Alex Lewczuk
days. And in terms of DIY, how close are we to actually say, Okay, we want to source out the majority of this and make sure we have robotic tasks to actually do the actual building itself and do the changes. Because that’s something which, again, people would actually say, yeah, don’t get into DIY. It could be a disaster.
Andrew Grill
Well, let’s look at another way. So I’m not an expert DIY. I know how to do some DIY. I’m pretty good with technology, but putting up things on the wall, I would leave to an expert. So what we might see, again, with AI helping us, is finding not just the products, but also the services in the same marketplace. So when I go and have that kitchen, Kingfisher being Q, may be able to say, well, actually, we can recommend some of the people that can actually put this together for you on the services. So I’m going to the one place I have, what I call an endless aisle. Everything I need I get from the same company, not just the products, but also the services. And AI can help find those people and match me to what I need and the right products. I think that’s where we’re going, and that’s where we have convenience and just get it done, do it for me.
Alex Lewczuk
Well, that’s a classic line in so many ways most and are you excited by how this is developing? Can you see no end to the joys in which AI can actually help with B and Q and more, as their Chief AI officer at kingfisher.
Mohsen Ghasempour
I mean, this is fascinating, especially they’re looking at the results from research that Andrew did for us. Writing is fascinating how the trust to AI is evolving, right? So we started our journey four years ago. I mean, two years ago we had our first AI agents to go live. But you know, seeing that people adoption, people trust, I think, is quite fascinating. As we building more capability into these AI agents, as Andrew mentioned, to expand the capabilities. We have 2.1 million product available to those agents. We have 1000s of DIY advice available to those agents. And I think. Fascinating to see people are a bit more open. You know, to put the trust in using this technology, it’s definitely very exciting.
Alex Lewczuk
Well, inevitably, I shouldn’t really have to ask the question, but I confirm that neither yourself, Mohsin, nor Andrew, nor indeed, as far as I went myself, are actually AI generated as yet. But you never know. Where can people go to to find out further details Mohsin about this particular work.
Mohsen Ghasempour
So I think we have a very easy website to follow. We have Kingfisher Futurist store.com that we put together, that there are you can find more information.
Alex Lewczuk
And in terms of following the wonderful world of Andrew grill, actioning Futurist, etc, where would you point people?
Andrew Grill
Andrew? Just search for actionable Futurist. The website, by the way, for the microsite that shows you the Store of the Future is Kingfisher, store of the future.com Excellent.
Alex Lewczuk
And an actionable Futurist is that somebody who’s literally taking action to get to the future.
Andrew Grill
Absolutely, if you leave one of my talks, or you come off a call, I give you a shopping list of things that I need you to do.
Alex Lewczuk
Andrew grill, actionable Futurist and Mohsen gas ampur Chief AI officer Kingfisher, believe in the future and keep on believing.
Mohsen Ghasempour
Gentlemen. Thank you. Alex, thanks, Alex, you.
