What do we eat today? The new AI assistant Alfie of the online supermarket Alfies knows: Alfie suggests a given topic or for existing ingredients recipes, creates food plans for the week and recommends products based on individual preferences. He can also plan menus for events (e.g. children’s birthdays). When it comes to “food pairing”, he calls the right wine accompaniment to a dish. The required products can be placed in the shopping cart with a click and then ordered directly from Alfies. Alfies is the first online supermarket in Europe with a AI shopping assistant.
“Our mission is to facilitate our customers’ lives. We do this with the comfortable online order and delivery within 60 minutes, but also by taking empty deposit containers,” explains Gunther Michl, co-founder and managing director of the online supermarket Alfies active in the Vienna and Graz area as well as in Zurich as well as in Zurich. “The creation of our shopping assistant Alfie is another logical step in this direction. Our goal with the AI assistant is to inspire our customers so that you can discover new products or find products even faster according to given criteria.” Alfie is available both in the Alfies apps and in the browser version.
Alfie can do that
The assistant based on a transformer language model is started via a corresponding symbol in the shop. Right from the start, Alfie shows some recipes as inspiration. As is known from other applications with artificial intelligence, there is a dialog box in which you type your question or request.
Depending on the need, Alfie creates recipes on a given topic or occasion. If you already have some ingredients at home, you can show it and get a suitable dish proposed. Alfie puts weekly plans for longer preliminary planning. Alfie also assists at event planning by creating menu plans for events and also calculating the correct quantities for all guests.
On request, Alfie also proposes products based on personal preferences, e.g. products from a certain kitchen, allergens or nutrition styles such as vegan or gluten -free. The assistant also dominates the food pairing, for example he offers the right wine accompaniment to a dish.
The required ingredients or recommended products can then be placed in the shopping cart with just one click and ordered directly from Alfies.
Conception with Isartech
Alfies has worked for this project with IsarTech, which specializes in AI assistants for e-commerce applications. Co-Founder Stefan Starflinger: “With the implementation of our individually designed AI assistant, Alfies is the first food dealer to bring conversational shopping to Europe. We look forward to shaping the future of e-commerce together!”
“At the moment, we are investigating which applications the users use most frequently in order to improve them accordingly. It is planned that our assistant in future takes past purchases when planning and creating shopping lists, when giving helpful product instructions, comparing options and when proposing relevant products,” said Michl.
Alfies is the online supermarket that delivers within 60 minutes. Alfies impresses with the combination of carefully selected full range, excellent service and competitive prices. This makes Alfies the ideal partner to make everyday life easier. In addition to drinks and food that is known from the supermarket, the range range includes regional specialties that are not available in conventional supermarkets. In addition, specialties from foreign countries are procured in order to be able to offer you the best of Europe and all over the world. Alfies is currently available in the Vienna and Graz area and in Zurich. Further information: www.alfies.at
IsarTech is an IT service provider who develops applications and agents based on large language models, such as a new shopping assistant who fundamentally improves the shopping experience. The application enables natural entertainment with customers and specifically supports them in the product search. The assistant also creates personal shopping lists and helps through individual product advice. Co-Founder: Stefan Starflinger and Franz-Anton La Rosée. Further information: https://isartech.io