1-800-Flowers on chatbots, online gifting and the automation of thoughtfulness

I'm Gwyn, your gift concierge, and I will help you pick the perfect gift." With this introduction, 1-800-Flowers.com is aligning the customer-centric traditions of its signature floral and gourmet gift delivery business with the emerging technology of the 21st century. GWYN, an acronym for Gifts When You Need, is an artificial intelligence (AI) engine based on the IBM Watson-powered Fluid Expert Personal Shopper (XPS) digital commerce platform, and her customer service skills add a new page to the Carle Place, New York-based gifting empire's playbook. On the surface, the concept is straightforward. GWYN (or more informally, Gwyn) is an online representative, or virtual concierge. She--and the AI definitely identifies as female--is designed to mimic natural language and assist customers in navigating through the products available at 1-800-Flowers.com. GWYN can make suggestions, answer questions and help complete a purchase. Of course, it's not easy to make tech look this effortless. To that end, she uses a rather intricate question analysis API. "We developed GYWN as another way to create a great customer experience," Dave Taiclet, president of 1-800-Flowers.com's Gourmet Food Group, told Retail Dive. "When people want to give a gift, there's a lot of ways they go about it.