As you may have seen across our social media last week, our team attended Klevu’s Discovered London conference. The Klevu Discovered London Conference is an exciting festival of discovery for everyone involved in the ecommerce industry, like ourselves. We all come together under one roof, vendors, merchants and agencies alike, bringing some of the most innovative and forward-thinking minds in the industry with us.
The conference covered a wide range of exciting topics related to ecommerce, from discussing the latest trends in online shopping to exploring innovative ways to use technology, from A/B testing to the advances in AI and even the use of ChatGPT for optimising ecommerce strategies.
Here's a bit of a recap according to Unified:
Partners eyes only
We started the day with a partner-only breakfast where we got to chat with all our industry's excellent partners and agencies. This was followed by an insightful session, diving into what Klevu’s roadmap and customer success looks like for 2023, and a partners-only awards ceremony. Congratulations to all the Klevu Partner awards winners; we loved connecting with you all!
Keynote speeches to die for
One of the biggest draws of the Klevu Discovered London Conference for us was undoubtedly its keynote speakers. From experienced CEOs to up-and-coming experts, the conference was a great opportunity to hear from some of the most successful and influential people in the ecommerce space. The sessions began with lessons from Klevu’s Nilay Oza. He dived into the history, current time and future of AI search, including the key differences and use cases for keyword-based, neural, and semantic search.
In the afternoon, we split into two tracks, business and tech and heard how to build out requirements for modern product discovery. Our favourite session was Discovering New Markets with Shamoli Miah (Vervaunt), Gavin Williams (Creed), and Diego Fria (Stussy), where they discussed how to feed internationalisation into your ecommerce strategy. If you want to hear what you missed out on, keep an eye out for the recordings on Klevu's website.
Personalisation, personalisation, personalisation
A top highlight for us was a panel discussion about the potential of personalisation from Vitaly Friedman (Smashing Magazine), David Mannheim (Made with Intent), Rasmus Houlind (Author: Hello $FirstName), and Gianfranco Cuzziol (Avon International). It started with a debate on what is personalisation and whether it needs a definition. Needless to say they couldn’t agree, but what they could agree on was the emerging theme of how retailers need to align their personalisation strategy with both their short-term and long-term goals. We will never forget Molly, the sheep who got a mention during this panel (if you were there, you know what we mean), and the fantastic personalisation strategy of New Zealand brand Sheep Inc.
Meet MOI
We couldn’t summarise the conference without discussing Klevu’s latest product release. MOI, which means ‘hi’ in Finnish, is the newest technology by Klevu’s AI Lab.
Since Open AI and Chat GPT have taken the world by storm, their dedicated AI scientists and engineers wanted to revolutionise the shopping experience. MOI changes how customers interact with ecommerce sites by providing a faster way for them to find exactly what they want when browsing online. Consider what a great sales assistant in a physical shop would do; that is what MOI does online. It is an AI-infused chat function that can remember and persist a conversation thread throughout a shopping journey. You can find out more here.
Networking that matters
As the panel sessions drew to a close, we were treated to another awards ceremony, this time for merchants, followed by evening drinks and canapes. Big shout out to Gorgias for staffing the DJ decks in style.
But we didn’t stop there; Shopify sponsored an unforgettable after-party at the fabulous Bar Elba rooftop bar near Waterloo, where we ended the evening. This was a fantastic opportunity to unwind and celebrate our collective achievements before heading home.
Closing thoughts
We learnt so much at the Klevu Discovered London Conference, such as tips and tricks for search, product recommendations, integrating UX, interesting stats about where consumers want AI, and so much more. It was an excellent opportunity to meet and network with like-minded individuals in the industry, connect with potential business partners and vendors, and even show off our new branding!
The ecommerce industry is constantly evolving, so we love to stay on top of industry trends and applications and of course, keep in touch with experts in the industry. Attending events like the Klevu Discovered London Conference helps us stay ahead of the curve. This was definitely an unforgettable experience full of discovery!
