Recently, I received an inquiry from a popular e-commerce business manager looking for help with an AI integration into their business model. I was about letting AI understand each customer in detail and take psychological actions live on the store while the customer is browsing, showing them products, and altering the content and pricing of the products on the basis of the purchase history and browsing history.
I was a bit skeptical about their need to invest in AI at this stage, because what they were asking for could be implemented at a huge cost. Our first meeting concluded that we can achieve something similar without spending too much on automation instead of AI. But there was scope, and I needed to see how AI can benefit them in the long run.
I asked for a visual blueprint, and received it the next day. After researching the possibilities for about a week, I reached a conclusion – We can build a complete system of AI integrated tools for their ecommerce, and automation would only be a small part of the project. We were excited about the idea, but at the same time, there was a huge integration cost and timeframe involved. A complete scope had to be finalized before we moved to development.
The primary requirements of the ecommerce manager could be easily established with a simple automation code inside their current setup without breaking anything they’ve been doing for the last five years. The extended features that require AI can be built and deployed in 6 months’ time, with 1 month of testing, and then initial release.
Also, there’s a huge cost difference. A simple automation setup would cost about $8000, and a complete AI system would cost $45,000 to build from scratch if done offshore. From this scenario, we can come to a conclusion: Anyone can integrate AI into their business, but not everyone should, at least not right away.
Going for a misleading AI solution and being adamant about using it can cause a lot of problems. Let’s understand what we mean when we say this.
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