British retailer John Lewis has signed a five-year agreement with Alphabet’s Google Cloud, to take advantage of the most recent advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence.
“Not only does it save customers a lot of time and hassle, but even before the appointment we can take inspiration from their unique preferences and give tailored recommendations that can even complement products they already have,” Zak Mian, the John Lewis Partnership’s chief transformation and technology officer said.
He gave the example of clients utilising the John Lewis app’s image scanning feature to show the company’s interior designers a room they want to furnish.
The employee-owned partnership, which manages the Waitrose grocery chain and John Lewis department stores, announced on Wednesday that the new contract, which expands on a ten-year cooperation with Google Cloud, was worth 100 million pounds ($127 million).
More of the partnership’s technology will shift to Google Cloud as a result of the enlarged deal.
According to the cooperation, the cloud provider’s employees would become more effective, spend more time concentrating on clients, and make better use of data insights to assist curate products and services thanks to the AI and ML technologies the toolset provider would supply.
