Lotte Department Store Utilizes AI for Internal Work Efficiency
Hyundai Department Store Develops 'AI Shopping Assistant'
Lotte Distribution Group HQ Plans and Manages AI with 'Lilac Center'
AmorePacific Opens 'AmoreChat' for Customer Consultation
Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a hot topic in the retail industry. Recently, major companies such as Lotte Department Store and Hyundai Department Store have been competitively utilizing AI to enhance customer service and improve internal work efficiency.
According to the industry on June 30, Lotte Department Store officially launched its 'BI Agent,' which utilizes AI in the customer analysis process, starting the previous day. This system simplifies the highly skilled and specialized process of customer analysis into a conversational format, thereby expanding the scope of data usage in practical work. The time required for customer analysis tasks has also been reduced to several minutes or even just a few dozen seconds.
Lotte Department Store plans to further accelerate its hyper-personalization strategy. Since last year, the company has been expanding the application of AI to internal operations to improve productivity across various fields. It has categorized internal work manuals and integrated them with a conversational AI chatbot, introduced ChatGPT into collaboration tools, and is also using generative AI for the production of visual content.
On June 11, Hyundai Department Store completed the development of its AI shopping assistant 'Heydee (HEYDI).' Heydee stands for 'Hyundai Personalized Lifestyle Design AI,' representing a unique, tailored lifestyle design AI exclusive to Hyundai Department Store. Based on generative AI, Heydee recommends in-store brands, restaurants, and events according to each customer's preferences and reasons for visiting.
During June, Hyundai Department Store conducted a pilot operation of QR codes for visitors at Hyundai Outlet Dongdaemun. The official launch is scheduled for early next month across all Hyundai Department Store and outlet locations nationwide, as well as on the company website. 'Heydee Global,' a version for foreign customers, will be introduced first, and services for domestic customers are expected to begin as early as within the year.
In addition, last month Hyundai Department Store internally introduced a self-developed AI mentor system to help new employees, junior staff, and those changing roles to quickly adapt and acquire professional knowledge. This AI was trained using the results of 'in-depth insight interviews' totaling 3,300 hours, conducted over three months from the beginning of this year with 139 top performers, certified professionals, and experienced hires selected from 13 key job areas, including MD, space, trends, global, accounting, and ESG.
On June 12, Lotte Mart launched the revamped 'Bottle Bunker 2.0 app,' utilizing Google's large language model (LLM) 'Gemini.' The app now features an 'AI Sommelier,' which recommends suitable wines in real time based on the TPO (time, place, occasion) inquiries from consumers. A new 'Bottle Log' function allows users to manage their wine and whisky purchase history, making it easy to repurchase previously bought or searched-for alcoholic beverages.
In November 2023, Lotte Distribution Group HQ established and has been operating the 'Lilac Center.' The Lilac Center plans and manages AI projects for Lotte's distribution affiliates. It is actively pursuing specialized AI services tailored for the retail industry, such as the adoption of AI services by each affiliate and the development of a 'smart pricing system' through price trend analysis.
On May 23, AmorePacific launched its customer service AI chatbot 'AmoreChat' on the online Amore Mall. AmoreChat is a service based on generative AI technology that consults users on their beauty concerns and compares and recommends necessary products. It can summarize reviews of products sold on Amore Mall and also check the delivery status of ordered items.
This chatbot provides increasingly personalized responses the more it is used, and recommends products tailored to the user's preferences and circumstances. In addition, a photo-based search function allows users to easily check and compare product information using their mobile devices.
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