The British company John Lewis announced the beginning of cooperation with Google Cloud.
As part of the partnership program with the technology giant, the firm will direct investment funds in the amount of about $127 million to promote its John Lewis and Waitrose brands in the digital space. The relevant information is contained in the company’s press release, which was published last Wednesday, August 9.
John Lewis is a chain of high-end department stores that operates throughout the United Kingdom. This company specializes in the sale of goods belonging to the category of consumer products. The activity is carried out within the framework of the joint organization John Lewis Partnership, which is the largest cooperative in the UK. In the period from 1925 to 2022, the chain adhered to the strategy of corporate policy, which provided for the sale of goods at lower prices compared to competitors. In February last year, the company announced the rejection of this concept of activity. This decision was explained by the intention to match the price range of branded goods of other British retailers. Representatives of the company said that the strategy, which has been in effect since 1925 and did not apply to online purchases, is losing relevance in the online market, which demonstrates steady expansion.
The press release of the department store chain, published on the occasion of the launch of partnerships with the technology giant, indicates that this cooperation agreement will contribute to the fact that more firms will start using cloud services, using technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.
The company also notes that access to new tools based on advanced technologies will allow employees to increase their level of efficiency, spend more time interacting with customers and use analytical data more productively within the framework of product and service management.
John Lewis Partnership Chief Transformation and Technology Officer Zak Mian said that the digital toolkit will provide customers with the opportunity to use the image scanning function in the department store chain application so that home design stylists can get acquainted with his room, which he plans to furnish and study all the features of the living space, layout, and dimensions. He noted that this technological solution not only saves consumers time and saves them from having to solve a lot of problems, but also increases the level of individualization. Specialists will offer clients a solution for the arrangement of residential premises and create options for supplementing the space with unique interior details as a way to improve the main stylistic concept.
The use of artificial intelligence as a means of visualizing what consumers can get by opting for certain offers is a common practice. For example, the German shoe and fashion retailer Zalando in July introduced an AI-based tool for measuring the figure. In this case, buyers can determine their ideal size using two photos.
Also in July, Google introduced a virtual fitting function controlled by artificial intelligence. This tool is available free of charge for brands that are members of the technology giant’s trading program.
John Lewis’ partnership with Google is partly due to the fact that the company from Mountain View is showing strong growth in the implementation of projects in the field of artificial intelligence. Revenue from the tech giant’s cloud business grew by 28% in the second quarter of 2023.
Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company intuitively knows how to integrate machine intelligence into its products. According to him, the technology giant’s cloud infrastructure is optimized for AI.
As we have reported earlier, Dropbox Launches AI-Powered Products to Search and Organize Cloud Data.
