The re-emergence of conversational AI is the next frontier in every aspect of our lives. Even Google is considering upending its traditional search results for a ChatGPT-style conversation, showing that the future of search is conversational.

Although the fashion industry has experimented with chatbots before, the release of Open AI’s ChatGPT has led to a rush of retailers looking to supplement the eCommerce journey with technology like chatbots.

Retailers are also wondering whether ChatGPT can be a standalone solution to provide better eCommerce product recommendations.

However, both chatbots and “regular” ChatGPT have limitations in this area.

YesPlz’s AI Stylist (powered by ChatGPT for retail) is the world’s first AI stylist that uses combined AI technologies to find curated clothing for shoppers. 

But, how does YesPlz’s ChatGPT AI Stylist stand against traditional chatbots for retail, regular ChatGPT, human stylists, and AI stylists? We’ll show you why it’s a step above the rest.

Online Stylists Are Limited In Efficiency and Shopper Transparency

One solution that fashion eCommerce retailers have tried in the past is to use a real, human stylist that connects with shoppers via chat to find clothes. While this was an innovative solution in the past, there are better options in 2023 for retailers looking to make better product recommendations.

The limitations of online stylists include:

• Time-zone Differences: Online stylists are sometimes simply not available in a shopper’s time-zone because of time differences. This requires shoppers to adhere to the stylist's schedule

• Lack of knowledge of product catalog: Online stylists are humans, and may not remember the entire product catalog or specific product attribute details to make extremely accurate recommendations, leaving retailers with unsold products

• Inefficiency: Only 1 stylist can serve 1 client at a time, leading to unavailable stylists and shoppers that are waiting on hold

Overall, using a human stylist is a missed opportunity for retailers to gather valuable, transparent shopper data.

Shoppers may not feel comfortable sharing personal style detail preferences.

For example, YesPlz research shows that shoppers want to hide or flaunt their body parts–and it can be daunting to tell a human about these specific preferences.

The 2023 Shopper Demands More Than A Traditional Chatbot for Retail Can Offer

Traditional chatbots are rule-based computer programs that use pre-programmed responses to communicate with users. They rely on specific keywords or phrases to trigger their responses.

Traditional chatbots for eCommerce have been around for years, and while they have provided some benefits, their limitations are becoming increasingly apparent.

Limitations of Traditional Chatbots for Retail Include:

• Not UX Friendly: With automated responses, it’s difficult for shoppers to explore product catalogs in a user-friendly way.

• Not conversational: Chatbots for retail lack the ability to understand natural language, which is a serious limitation for shoppers who do not want to be limited by pre-established choices or bogged down by never-ending menus.

• No Product Recommendations: Traditionally, they don’t make recommendations. Interacting with a chatbot is more similar to automated filtering, rather than having a two-way conversation.

Overall, traditional chatbots are becoming less effective as eCommerce evolves and customers demand more personalized, human-like experiences.

ChatGPT AI Stylist uses machine learning algorithms and data analysis to create personalized recommendations based on individual user preferences. Chatbots, on the other hand, tend to provide more general responses that aren’t tailored to specific users.

When chatbot knowledge is limited to a website, or rules-based, shoppers have limited engagements with technology.

However, with YesPlz’s AI Stylist, shoppers can ask anything, and receive responses to guide the journey. And, responses are generated as the conversation evolves, making the entire interaction more natural than chatbots.

Regular ChatGPT Lacks the Creative Thinking to Recommend Superior Products

Most recently, ChatGPT for retail has come front and center in the discussion around integrating technology into the shopping experience. ChatGPT is strong in its ability to generate immediate responses to questions, but as it stands today, isn’t immediately able to integrate with retailer websites. 

Regular ChatGPT, despite all the hype around it, isn’t enough for retailers to make sophisticated product recommendations. Here’s why:

• Not fashion trained: ChatGPT isn’t trained in fashion specifically, so recommendations are broad, which doesn’t help shoppers with their specific fashion needs

• No integration with retailer product catalogs: Instead, shoppers receive long-winded text descriptions that are difficult to read and too general to spark discovery.

• Lacks the creative “spark” needed to make superior recommendations: ChatGPT responses are underwhelming because it tries to stay neutral, making recommendations dull and uninspiring.

Regular ChatGPT requires more input from shoppers to get recommendations, making the discovery journey more burdensome.

YesPlz AI Stylist (Powered by ChatGPT for Retail) Is a Step Above The Rest

Enter YesPlz AI Stylist (Powered by ChatGPT for Retail), which uses state-of-the-art machine learning technology to deliver personalized recommendations based on shoppers’ individual style preferences.

Recommendations are a step above others because they’re not only based on style or color, but also theme, vibe, and mood. Shoppers are given a curated selection of products based on their prompt, including styling tips and style-with products.

And, recommendations are integrated with the retailer product catalog so shoppers can see the full depth of products. 

Behind the scenes, powerful AI creates real-time personalization. YesPlz combined different kinds of AI including:

AI Image Tagging: Our advanced computer vision technology quickly scans product catalogs and assigns product attributes to each item, making it easy to successfully curate recommendations.

Generative AI: We utilize Open AI's technology to create responses to prompts

NLP: By leveraging NLP, we can better understand the meaning of prompts, even incomplete questions like "Summer dresses?", without requiring shoppers to adjust their language to fit the machine.

Fashion Transformer: Proprietary to YesPlz AI, we built a fashion transformer that translates OpenAI’s recommendations, as well as product catalogs. Then, it finds the best matching results. Thanks to the fashion transformer, we can process the matching process from recommendations for thousands of products in a second.

The end result: personalized style recommendations that mimic the experience of having a personal stylist at your fingertips.

How YesPlz Is Solving The Biggest Problems With Chatbots and Regular ChatGPT

Here are the biggest problems with typical retail chatbots–and the optimized solution, using the YesPlz AI Stylist (Powered by ChatGPT).

• Not Fashion Trained: YesPlz’s AI specializes in fashion training, and can therefore understand NLP in fashion contexts.

Example: Our AI understands that lavender is a purple color, and that rust is a brown color.

• No Integration with Retailer Product Catalogs: Since YesPlz’s AI Stylist is based on AI image tagging, our AI already knows the product information (such as attributes, theme, mood) of a retailer’s entire catalog. Then, YesPlz AI talks to Open AI to bring matching products based on shopper prompts.

• Lacks Creative Intelligence: Unlike OpenAI, YesPlz’s AI Stylist can save past conversations (when shoppers opt-in) and analyze the key product attributes from liked items to make even more relevant recommendations.

Are you curious to see how YesPlz AI Stylist can integrate with your product catalog?

Schedule a free 20-min demo