Byte-Sized AI is a bi-weekly column that covers all things artificial intelligence —from startup funding, to newly inked partnerships, to just-launched, AI-powered capabilities from major retailers, software providers and supply chain players.
How Do Companies Keep Tech-Powered Personalization from Going Too Far?
Skims partners with Altana for supply chain insights
Skims has signed a partnership with Altana to help keep an eye on ethical and sustainable production practices, the supply chain technology company announced this week.
Altana, which also boasts customers like U.S. Customs and Border Protection ( CBP ) and L.L. Bean, uses what it calls an intelligent map to help companies flag risk factors in their existing or potential supply chains.
That helps brands root out forced labor under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act ( UFLPA ), delays from natural disasters and other potential issues, before their shipments ever face issues at CBP. The technology uses a bottom-up map approach, offering real-time insights and replacing the static, expensive process associated with manual supply chain mapping.
Altana’s map is “always on,” Amy Morgan, the company’s vice president, head of trade compliance, told Sourcing Journal last year.
The announcement of Skims and Altana’s partnership comes not long after a Remake report slammed Skims for lack of transparency around labor practices and sustainability.
Evan Smith, CEO and co-founder of Altana, said the company’s AI solution should allow Skims an unprecedented level of vision into its supply chain.
“Skims has been setting new standards since it was founded in 2019,” Smith said in a statement. “We are excited to have the brand’s trust and are confident that Altana and our technology will enable newfound innovation as Skims works with vendors across its extended value chain to ensure sustainable and ethical products.”
Serial entrepreneurs secure $50 million in seed money for product discovery platform
A small cohort of retail and technology veterans have combined forces to launch product discovery platform Daydream, for which they have already secured $50 million in funding. Forerunner Ventures and Index Ventures co-led the seed round, with participation from Google Ventures and True Ventures.
The team will launch a beta version of the platform this fall, and it will focus on supercharging search and recommendation for e-commerce. Using the platform, consumers can search for occasion-based items, products based on their color or attributes and more. From there, Daydream will populate several different options from brands listed in its catalog.
For instance, if a consumer searches for “Bright-colored sneakers that feel old school and classic,” they might receive results from Converse, Veja, Puma and other brands, which they can then select from. According to a release from Daydream, the startup already has over 2,000 brands in its catalog.
Julie Bornstein, an alumna of Stitchfix , Sephora, Urban Outfitters and Nordstrom and co-founder of Daydream, said the project will change the way consumers shop and redefine brands and retailers’ perceptions of what’s possible for product discovery.
Trucking Experts Tout AI's Potential to Revolutionize Logistics
“I have always been particularly obsessed with search and personalization and could not be more excited for the massive gains in AI over the past year,” Bornstein said in a statement. “We can finally build an intelligent online shopping platform that will make it easy and fun for consumers to find products they love among the best selection of brands and retailers in the world.”
Kirsten Green, founder and managing partner at Forerunner, said Daydream has an opportunity to disrupt even the biggest players in search and e-commerce with its new solution.
“For decades, search has been the prevailing entry point to the internet, but it’s increasingly fraught and ineffective when people are looking for personalized, specific answers that meet their unique needs. With AI, we believe we can do so much better than the chaotic, cluttered experience that search has become,” she said in a statement. “We believe that search will transition to service, with the search giants dominating the space losing market share to new entrants providing personalized, AI-driven services that work in collaboration with consumers to meet their end goals and delight with a fundamentally new level of value. Daydream is leading this shift in commerce, with the opportunity to reimagine the way we shop and discover things we’ll love.”
MIT launches lab to study AI in logistics
MIT ‘s new Intelligent Logistics Lab, which falls under the umbrella of its Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL) will be partly funded by intralogistics company Mecalux, based in Toronto.
The lab aims to explore the ways in which AI can aid more rapid development of the logistics sector, particularly by solving the most major inefficiencies in logistics. It will have a specific focus on efficiency, sustainability, resilience in the supply chain and satisfaction among logistics customers.
Under the guidance of Matthias Winkenbach, director of research at MIT CTL, lab researchers will look into the predictive intelligence behind capabilities like same-day delivery; autonomous intelligence that powers warehouse robots; augmented intelligence, which focuses on how best to combine humans’ intelligence with AI and more.
“We aim to harness the power of AI and machine learning in combination with state-of-the-art optimization methods to tackle the most significant real-world challenges facing the logistics industry today,” Winkenbach said in a statement.
Here Technologies launches AI for fleet optimization
Amsterdam-based Here Technologies announced Monday it had launched a suite of fleet optimization tools powered by AI.
The location technology platform’s newest tool includes four key capabilities and is built to run on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Here Tour Planning will use real-time and historical data on traffic and road restrictions to Here Routing will create custom truck and commercial vehicle navigation solutions, and Here Geocoding and Search will verify and augment address accuracy through specific coordinates to help fleets move more efficiently based on up-to-date data. Here Map Rendering will share maps with “rich attributes used specifically by commercial vehicles, including road restrictions, bridge heights, road topology and topography” to add with navigation for drivers.
According to the company, the new fleet optimization suite can also account for driver availability, delivery schedules and attributes of each vehicle in a fleet. The technology has, thus far, showed a 20 percent potential reduction in costs for fleet management and driver productivity and a 90 percent reduction in time spent on manual re-routing.
TikTok's Latest Tool Enables Brands to Use AI-Generated Avatars in Ads
Most Popular
Comments / 0