Tesco has signed an AI deal with software giant Adobe to “accelerate personal engagement” with the supermarket’s shoppers.
The “strategic AI partnership” is focused on personalising the content and offers Tesco serves up to its Clubcard members and “better anticipating” their needs along the shopping journey.
As part of the deal, the two companies are launching a new innovation lab, described as a “co-innovation model”, which will see Adobe engineers working directly alongside Tesco personalisation and AI teams.
“At Tesco, we want customers to feel that the more they use their Clubcard, the more use it is to them,” said Becky Brock, Tesco group customer digital transformation director.
“Working with Adobe, we can be even more responsive to the needs of shoppers. We can act in the moment, getting the right messages, savings or ideas to the right customers, just when they need them,” she added.
“Our focus is always on finding ways to surprise and delight our customers, and the partnership with Adobe gives us more ways to do that – using AI to benefit our customers with shopping experiences that are genuinely personalised, convenient and helpful,” Brock said.
The announcement follows the launch last week of a trial of an AI assistant built into the Tesco app, with which customers can converse to find personalised recipe ideas and add the required ingredients to their basket.
The AI assistant is initially launching to 280,000 Tesco colleagues, before being rolled out to all customers later this year.
The assistant will be able to tap a customer’s previous shopping history and preferences to inform the recipes, account for different dietary requirements, and select meals that use leftover ingredients in the fridge or cupboard. This happens via a “natural, two-way dialogue”, the supermarket said.
Tesco has already doubled the size of its technology team over the past five years and is already using AI, developed both in-house and with partners, across many of its operations.
They include finding the most efficient routing for online orders to create more delivery slots for customers, helping with demand forecasting to ensure availability, and ramping up personalisation through Clubcard.
In December the supermarket announced a three-year deal with French tech company Mistral AI to develop “cutting-edge” AI solutions, including an overhaul of its personalised Clubcard offers.
The partnership gives Tesco full access to the AI company’s commercial models, including any future developments, as well as its AI engineers.
It included a commitment for the two companies to work together through a new joint ‘AI lab’. This will see Mistral AI and Tesco’s technology experts work together to create new generative AI solutions for different parts of the Tesco business.
Of the new Adobe partnership, Nathan Hancock, vice president and managing director, UK, Ireland, Middle East and Africa at Adobe, said the combination of Tesco’s relationship with 24 million Clubcard-holding households and Adobe’s AI capabilities was “a genuine step-change for modern retail personalisation”.
“Few retailers anywhere in the world have built the depth of trust and knowledge that Tesco has, and together we can connect that foundation with AI-powered solutions that deliver smarter journeys and more personal customer experiences at an unprecedented scale,” he said.
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