Can artificial intelligence already predict our consumer behaviour?

Dariusz Prokopowicz @Dariusz-Prokopowicz

01 January 1970 7 9K Report

Can artificial intelligence already predict our consumer behaviour and in a short while will it be able to predict which shop we will go to and what we will buy tomorrow?

With the help of artificial intelligence, how can systems for monitoring citizens' consumer behaviour based on GPS geolocalisation and information contained in smartphones be improved?

The lockdowns and national quarantines introduced during the coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19) caused a strong decline in sales and turnover generated in traditionally, physically functioning shops and service establishments. The lockdowns imposed on selected service industries and on traditionally operated trade also resulted in an acceleration of e-commerce, the sale of products and services conducted via the Internet. When the coronavirus pandemic was no longer interpreted in terms of high health and economic risk, a significant proportion of traditionally operated trade and physical service establishments also returned to traditionally operated business, customer service, product or service sales. On the other hand, emerging new ICT and Industry 4.0 solutions are being implemented and support the economic activities of companies, enterprises, service establishments and shops producing and/or offering their products or services in both traditional and Internet-based formats. when the pandemic was considered to be over and did not generate major risks for the economic activities of service establishments and shops, new ICT and Industry 4. 0, including artificial intelligence technologies, are being implemented in information systems to support the sales processes of product or service offerings, including improving tools for activating potential consumers, getting customers interested in new product or service offerings, and encouraging customers to visit stationary shops and service establishments. In this regard, startups have been rapidly developing over the past few years, which, using anonymous mobile user identifiers and accurate location and internet user data available in various applications installed on smartphones, are able to precisely locate where a smartphone user is at any given time and diagnose whether he or she is by chance making a purchase in a specific stationary shop, walking down the street passing by an establishment providing specific services and perhaps considering using those services. In a situation where a technology start-up has data on a specific Internet user downloaded from a number of different Internet applications and, on the basis of this data collected on Big Data Analytics information processing and analysis platforms, has drawn up information-rich characteristics of the interests and purchasing preferences of a kind of digital avatar equivalent to a specific Internet user, then, in combination with analysis of current customer behaviour and GPS-based geolocalisation, it is able to make real-time predictions about the subsequent behaviour and/or purchasing decisions of individual potential customers of specific product or service offerings. Some technology start-ups conducting this kind of analytics based on large sets of customer data and on geolocalisation, use of specific apps and social media available on the smartphone and knowledge of the psychology of consumer behaviour are first able to precisely locate consumers in real time with reference to specific shops, service establishments, etc. They are able to firstly locate consumers in real time and precisely identify specific shops, service providers, etc., and then display information on advertising banners appearing in specific applications on the smartphone about the current offer, including a price or other promotion for a specific product available for sale in the shop where the Internet user and potential customer is currently located. Thanks to this type of technological solutions, more and more often an Internet user available on a smartphone in a situation when he/she is in the vicinity, next to specific stands, shop shelves, specific shops in shopping centres, and is thinking about buying a specific product, then at that moment he/she receives information on the smartphone, an advertisement appears with information on a price or other promotion concerning that particular product or a similar, highly substitutable product. At the aforementioned point in time when the customer is in a specific shop or part of a shop, online advertisements are displayed on his or her smartphone, e.g. on social media, the Google ecosystem, third-party web browsers or other applications that the potential customer has installed on his or her smartphone.

When such technological solutions are complemented by artificial intelligence analysing the consumer behaviour of individual customers of different product and service offers, it is possible to create intelligent analytical systems capable of predicting who will visit a specific shop, when they will do so and what they plan to buy in that shop. Statistically, a citizen has several applications installed in his or her smartphone, which provide the technology-based analytical companies with data about their current location. Therefore, thanks to the use of artificial intelligence, it may not be long before Internet users receive messages, see online advertisements displayed on their smartphones showing the products and services they are about to buy or think about tomorrow. Perhaps the artificial intelligence involved in this kind of analytics is already capable of predicting our consumer behaviour in real time and will soon be able to predict which shop we will go to and what we will buy tomorrow.

In view of the above, I would like to address the following question to the esteemed community of scientists and researchers:

With the help of artificial intelligence, how can monitoring systems for citizens' consumer behaviour based on GPS geolocation and information contained in smartphones be improved?

Can artificial intelligence already predict our consumer behaviour and in a few moments will it be able to predict which shop we will go to and what we will buy tomorrow?