How AI has lifted IKEA's AOV by 2% worldwide

Artificial Intelligence-powered product recommendations and a more scientific approach to data has seen IKEA lift average order value (AOV) by 2% worldwide. Here Albert Bertlisson, head of engineering at Edge at IKEA Retail (Ingka Group) explains how the company did it. "At IKEA we have multiple places in our customer journey in various channels where different kinds of personalisation can deliver a superior customer experience," he says. "After a while in the broader'recommendations' team there was a decision to split the team to have one sub-team focused on product recommendations. The pandemic altered customer behaviour and needs as well. At that inflection point we decided to change our way of working and dive head-first into a more scientific approach to handle the operational complexities of delivering high quality product recommendations at scale. We deemed this necessary to improve our level of personalization and to have a holistic understanding of our customers."