Generative AI (GenAI) has enjoyed quite the hype cycle, and businesses – around the world – are considering what they can do to equip employees with safe GenAI tools.
ALDO Group has these conversations on a day-to-day basis. Yet, GenAI is not at the top of its priority list.
"At first, I was very excited," recalled Matthieu Houle, CIO of ALDO Group. "It’s a new technology; what can we do with GenAI?
"It reminded me of the mobile revolution 15 years ago, and we considered the cowboy approach to it. But, pretty quickly, we had to come to terms with how to tackle this whole thing."
Soon, Houle realized that GenAI wasn't something his team would have to chase. Instead, it's something that would come to them.
"Yes, it was super exciting for me and the team to work on possibilities like building a chatbot for employee service," he continued. "But, companies like SAP will bring this to our people, as they already have with other GenAI use cases across different functions."
My role is to create differentiators… So, with GenAI, yes, it will bring new productivity and help, but most people will have access to the same tools, in general.
As such, instead of chasing the big GenAI dream, Houle understood that his time was better spent elsewhere, on good, old-fashioned predictive AI and machine learning.
"The more transformational AI for us is more on the predictive side," Houle added.
For instance, we have a project around predicting the future of sales. That’s the "Holy Grail" of retail. You can do a lot of things, such as optimizing your inventory, price, channels, and all of this stuff.
The project Houle mentioned culminated in the launch of Delphine: a predictive machine learning model that's supporting front- and back-office teams across ALDO Group.
Meet Delphine. ALDO Group's Big Predictive AI Investment
Delphine is the scientific brain behind ALDO Group’s demand forecasting.
For ALDO Group, that engine is critical. Just think of the nature of fashion. The customer thinks: I want a product at the right price, which makes me feel good. That much hasn't changed.
But, what is changing is how consumers get inspired, decide to buy, and where they want to buy.
So, from a brand and reach perspective, the critical question is: how can I better predict demand so I have the inventory in the right place, in the right size, and at the right price?
Recognizing this, Houle stated:
To be able to predict demand and use predictive AI in the back office, I think - other than huge financial savings, less of a carbon footprint, and less of a cost – that’s the biggest lever we can pull to improve consumer experience and differentiation.
Delphine will prove crucial here, but not as an all-knowing supercomputer. Instead, ALDO Group sees her as a colleague – hence the name – who has a seat at the table, helping the team crunch data. As Houle said:
Delphine won’t replace the buyers, the planners, and all these people; you need to bring her to the employees to help them do their work.
Houle recognizes composability as a critical trend that enables this predictive employee support. He needs to embed Delphine into employee workflows and interfaces to get the team to participate.
As such, he notes SAP's switch from a more monomythical planning application to a composable blueprint that his team can adapt with its data – wherever it's coming from – as a big time saver.
Where ALDO Group Believes GenAI Can Add Value
While Houle trusts ALDO Group's tech partners to bring new GenAI use cases to them, he understands the technology's potential to support employees and drive productivity.
"If you don't do it, you will become a laggard," he acknowledged. "Like, if you didn't have an eCommerce website in 2020, you're probably not in a good position today."
As such, ALDO Group has implemented several use cases, including auto-generating product descriptions for human review.
However, Houle's team also developed a more innovative solution after the company ran a hackathon at the Université de Montréal.
