Shopping online still amounts to little more than browsing a database. To
make the experience more engaging, and so help boost sales, Hideo Shimazu of NEC
in Japan has designed an online shop assistant called ExpertClerk. The system
works by imitating the tactics of human sales assistants. By offering
suggestions in natural language like “We have that in a similar colour”, and
repeatedly offering three contrasting samples, ExpertClerk tries to identify
what the shopper is most likely to buy, and steers them towards it.
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