Remark Raises $16 Million for AI Personas That Guide Online Shoppers

Remark raised $16 million in a Series A funding round for its artificial intelligence personas that are trained by human product experts to deliver personalized guidance to online shoppers.

The company will use the new funding to expand into new verticals, grow its network of experts, and enhance its systems for deploying AI personas and measuring their performance, according to a Tuesday (July 1) press release.

“By working with real product experts to train AI personas, we’re creating guidance that’s trusted, helpful and deeply personal,” Remark CEO and co-founder Theo Satloff said in the release. “Our goal is to make online shopping feel less like a transaction and more like being guided by someone who truly understands what you need.”

Remark’s AI personas are trained by more than 60,000 human subject-matter experts, including Olympic athletes, stylists, estheticians and new parents, according to the release.

The language models are trained on the experts’ knowledge, tone and preferences, enabling the AI personas to share anecdotes, personal knowledge and informed guidance, the release said.

For the brand partners who deploy this technology, the AI personas convert a greater share of shoppers — 28% compared to the industry average of 1% — and reduce customer service costs by guiding shoppers to the right products, per the release.

Since Remark’s previous funding round last year, the company has quadrupled its revenue and retained all of its more than 60 brand partners, according to the release.

Kamran Ali, principal at Inspired Capital, which led the funding round, said in the release that Remark is “redefining how brands connect with customers.”

“Remark is proving that this model not only improves the shopping experience, but also directly drives business results,” Ali said.

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “What Generative AI Has in Store for the Retail Industry” found that the advent of AI and machine learning spurred a new era in retail personalization.

More than 90% of retailers now use AI to automate personalization efforts and deliver real-time, tailored customer experiences, according to the report.

The report also found that 44% of retail shoppers are open to using chatbots for product information before making purchase decisions, and 35% would use chatbots for customer service support.

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