[AI Revolution](110) Catching 'Shopping Abandonment Customers' with AI... "Faster Trend Change Detection"

Interview with Park Ji-hyeok, CEO of Wadle
"Complex Purchase Journeys... Preventing Dropouts with AI Agents"
Plans to Enter Insurance and More... "Expanding the Benefits of Technology Is Also a Goal"

Park Ji-hyeok, CEO of Wadle, is being interviewed at Maru360 in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

"We aim to solve customer churn during the product search process through artificial intelligence (AI)."

The startup Wadle gained attention by developing an AI agent named Jentoo that recommends products tailored to customers' purchase intentions and situations in online shopping malls. Jentoo is based on a large language model (LLM) that consolidates various information such as reviews in the product details. As a result, it recommends products to online shoppers like a veteran salesperson and helps lead them to purchase.

Park Ji-hyuk, CEO of Wadle, was driven to develop the AI agent by the mask-buying frenzy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Experiencing the situation made him realize that shopping is not just a hobby or leisure activity but an essential part of daily life.

Jentoo plays a role in reducing customer churn and increasing purchase conversion rates for commerce companies. Park said, "In the past, online shopping was supplier-oriented, but now there are many options consumers must choose from, making the purchase journey more complex. Often, users have to leave the commerce platform to watch comparison videos or read search results or recommendation posts, making it difficult to retain users or encourage revisits."

He added, "Our primary goal is to reduce churn by enabling users to compare and obtain information through conversations with the AI agent within the e-commerce platform. We are also improving marketing effectiveness by analyzing customer preferences through purchase data."

Shopping is full of subjective elements based on individual tastes. Jentoo collected and learned vast amounts of data based on the LLM. The data foundation was established through Wadle’s shopping platform 'Sori Market,' launched in July 2020. They operated a conversational shopping service for 2,500 visually impaired users and collected commerce conversation data. This process was also conducted through 11st, which was partnered with Sori Market. Currently, they are upgrading the LLM to faithfully serve as a shopping assistant using data provided by e-commerce partners.

Park said, "Shopping trends move fast. Because changes like stockouts are frequent, the key is how to keep pace with the market and trends." He emphasized, "Our strength lies in enabling the AI to learn through conversations on what strategies to adopt to recommend products that can increase purchase conversion rates and sales amid continuously changing trends."

Wadle is planning to expand beyond shopping into insurance, finance, and real estate in the second half of this year. They are especially focusing on collaboration with insurance companies. Park explained, "Insurance is one of the fields with information asymmetry or difficult understanding. We see it as a market with many areas where AI can reduce information gaps."

Since Jentoo started at Sori Market, a shopping mall for the visually impaired, Wadle dreams of playing a role for society beyond B2B (business-to-business). Park felt the need to develop assistive technology for disabilities after researching walking-assist rehabilitation robots in 2015 and founded Wadle in 2018 after entering KAIST’s Department of Electrical Engineering.

He emphasized, "Our goal is to widely distribute our technology to IoT devices like kiosks that are difficult for disabled or elderly people to use, as well as offline spaces, to support their consumption activities. The good influence we pursue is to enable more people to naturally enjoy the benefits of technology."