Byte-Sized AI is a bi-weekly column that covers all things artificial intelligence—from startup funding, to newly inked partnerships, to just-launched, AI-powered capabilities from major retailers, software providers and supply chain players.
Target launches AI tool for holiday gifting
Target wants to bring personalization to the fore for holiday shoppers.
The company announced this week that it has launched several AI-enabled capabilities meant to streamline shopping for consumers.
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One of the tools Target has added is what it calls its Target Gift Finder. Like other retailers’ conversational AI tools, shoppers can give the tool an idea of what they’re looking for—take for instance, “Accessories for my Gen Z friend who has maximalist clothing taste.” The tool, in response, may ask a follow-up question, like, “What’s your preferred budget for this gift?” Once the user responds, the AI model underneath the chat interface surfaces results based on the shopper’s specifications.
Unlike other retailers’ models, though, Gift Finder doesn’t give specific ideas—instead, it shares categories and displays multiple items Target offers. That is to say, instead of surfacing one bracelet, one necklace and one purse for a user, the Gift Finder displays subcategories, like “necklaces,” “wallets” or “earrings” with product previews of a handful of items.
Amazon’s AI assistant, Rufus, gathers one-off listings for a consumer to choose from instead.
In addition to Target Gift Finder, the retailer has started offering a tool called List Scanner. It said its customers will be able to “scan their handwritten lists in the Target app—or scan holiday wish lists for the whole family—to add items seamlessly into their cart.”
Cara Sylvester, chief guest experience officer at Target, said the new features could help make Target even more of a destination for consumers’ holiday shopping. That’d be a boon to the retailer, which has been putting out shaky earnings in recent months and just axed 1,800 corporate employees from its workforce.
“We know so many of our guests love shopping our stores with their phones in hand, and when they use the Target app in-store, their basket sizes are nearly 50 percent higher as they discover more of what they love,” Sylvester said in a statement. “We’re committed to making the shopping experience this year even more connected, personal and intuitive, with innovations that help guests discover the hottest items and Target products they love at a great deal. It’s all about meeting them where they are, simplifying gift-giving and helping families focus more on the joy of the season.”
Female-founded manufacturing tech startup exits stealth, grabs $5M
Co-founders Anna-Julia Storch and Leonie Freisinger announced this week that their startup, Dryft, has come out of stealth with a $5 million seed round. General Catalyst led the round, with further participation from Neo, Sheryl Sandberg through Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners and a variety of angel investors.
Dryft is designed as an agentic AI system for manufacturing. It works to speed up manufacturing operations and “accelerate the physical world,” said Freisinger, the startup’s chief technology officer.
The company’s systems have the ability to tackle myriad issues, like production schedule updates or issues with deliveries of raw materials. It can also handle routine decisioning, like the most ideal order quantities or ensuring items make it to the production facility ahead of schedule.
Storch, the company’s CEO, said the agents, which are powered by precise mathematical systems adapted specifically for manufacturing purposes, will help clients save time and labor costs.
“Dryft takes action on its own instead of creating more work for operators. What makes this possible is our focus on design and user experience. Most of our users have never been able to experience true craftsmanship in products, the only thing they know is spreadsheets, email and an [enterprise resource planning system]. When they see Dryft, many are amazed at how effortless decision-making can be when the system is designed right,” Storch said in a statement.
Storch and Freisinger plan to use the funding to add headcount to their engineering team and to expand Dryft’s agentic decision-making capabilities. According to the company, its preliminary customers have “reported millions in inventory savings.”
Robin Dechant, partner at General Catalyst, said she believes Dryft—and its founders—have the strength to go the distance in the manufacturing market.
“ERPs gave factories sheet music. Dryft gives them a conductor—intelligence that sees every instrument, anticipates every transition and keeps the entire operation in tempo even as conditions change,” Dechant said in a statement. “[Storch] and [Freisinger] bring the rare combination of competitive instinct and technical depth needed to solve operational challenges manufacturers have struggled with for decades.”
AliExpress launches new AI tools for sellers
AliExpress announced this week that it has added new ways for sellers to leverage AI behind the scenes.
Its latest update is an AI-enabled image feature that enables sellers to “create and manage product listing photos more efficiently.” Now, AliExpress is able to right-size images on sellers’ behalfs automatically. The platform also uses the best versions of the image for specific placements based on users’ device types.
The tool is meant to avoid any issues with stretching or poor cropping, preserving the fidelity of the image. That will make it easier for sellers to snap and post, but it could also help buyers ensure that they’re getting items that directly resemble the listing photos they saw on AliExpress.
The listing tool can also help sellers add a flat-white background to images for listing purposes, which will help them create consistent, clean listings without having to manually edit the images they choose to use.
These new functions seem to mirror the seller experiences offered by other platforms, like eBay, Poshmark and Amazon—all of those e-commerce players have, in recent months, leveraged technology to make sellers’ path to market smoother.
In addition to the imaging tools, AliExpress has partnered with Quipt, a company that uses technology to unify first-party and third-party systems for dropshipping, to give sellers the ability to handle their businesses more seamlessly.
Quipt’s capabilities include automated data syncing related to products, prices and consumers’ orders; an easier way to handle returns and refunds and a master dashboard to handle myriad considerations from one hub.
Jason Willitts, CEO of Quipt, said the partnership is a natural next step for the e-commerce player as it works to streamline experiences for both sides of its customer base.
“We’re excited to team up with AliExpress to simplify the path [between] sellers [and] buyer[s],” Willitts said in a statement. “Together we can help sellers go live on AliExpress faster, manage operations more efficiently, maintain accurate data at scale, and give consumers a great shopping experience.”
