Easier and faster: discover the perfect shopping experience thanks to AI product description

Michael Weigand, Chief Technology Officer at health and life, has been developing e-commerce systems for over ten years and is experiencing a revolution in his work with the recent boom in artificial intelligence (AI). In this interview, he explains exactly how it is changing the online shopping experience for customers of the health and life webshops vitaland, adorelle, McDrogerie.ch and BENU.ch.

Mr Weigand, as a leading online provider in the Swiss healthcare market, health and life, a PHOENIX Pharma Switzerland company, is one of the first in the country to use AI in its online shops. Can you briefly explain what you use AI for?
We have been working intensively on the use of AI in our webshops for about a year now. For some time now, we have been using various AI systems for product recommendations to continuously improve the customer experience. Generative AI systems, which create their own training data and expand their knowledge on this basis, are also used to create product descriptions, among other things.

We feed the system with concise prompts. This results in easy-to-understand and short texts that are also extremely precise. The first AI product descriptions are due to go online on our webshops vitaland, adorelle, McDrogerie.ch and BENU.ch these days.

What are the advantages of using AI to write product descriptions?
We have trained the AI so that it breaks down the publicly available manufacturer information into a standardised and understandable language for us. It also highlights the most important features of the product and automatically summarises important questions and answers. This also has a positive effect on Google searches. Our customers find the perfect product more easily.

Like humans, AI is not error-free. From time to time, it hallucinates or uses strange or even incorrect sources. How do you ensure quality assurance?
This was a learning process for everyone involved, especially at the beginning. By continuously adapting the prompts, we have managed to make the descriptions more and more specific. Our customer service acts as «teaching staff» here, checking and correcting the accuracy of the AI information. The result: the error rate of the AI drops.

However, a certain residual risk remains. For this reason, AI product descriptions at health and life are labelled as such with a reference to contacting customer service in the event of errors or discrepancies. It is important to note that drugs have a product description authorised by Swissmedic and are not changed by our AI either.

The development of AI is progressing rapidly. Where is this journey taking health and life?
By the end of the second quarter of 2024, we plan to have AI product descriptions for around half of the product range in our webshops vitaland, adorelle, McDrogerie.ch and BENU.ch. In the not-so-distant future, all the 40,000 or so products should be AI-described. What comes after that is still up in the air. Our vision is to create a similar customer experience as in a real pharmacy thanks to AI. 

Are there any comparable innovations that you have experienced in your career?
The term AI has been around in our industry for some time. However, it is only now that the degree of usability that we are experiencing with AI product descriptions is unique, both for us and for our customers. We are excited to see what the future holds!