While the general public has plugged itself into any AI app that hits the headlines, businesses have been much more coy when it comes to adding AI to their day-to-day systems and functionality. This is despite the real hype around AI not being just to speed up internet searches, but to increase business potential.
As it stands, most organizations, per McKinsey, remain in the pilot or experimentation phase. On top of this, around two in three businesses that featured in their survey are yet to start scaling AI. Curiosity is particularly high when it comes to AI agents, but not too much further. Personalization and generative UI could spur more uptake or at least encourage a closer look.
After all, it’s this angle that is seen as making online shopping more appealing. Convenience is one thing, but websites naturally lack human interaction and a human touch. AI won’t fill this void, but it can offer an experience that’s a bit closer. Recommendations and a personalised experience touch on this core desire of customers and can be made very effective by the right AI program.
Using AI to Refine Your Platform for Individuals
Platforms are continually in pursuit of the perfect presentation. They want users to come straight onto a page and find exactly what they want. When you’re a platform of hundreds or thousands of options, this is very tough. On an ever-updating entertainment platform, for example, finding the Big Bass Trophy Catch game could be made even easier.
Right now, if you want to find Big Bass Trophy Catch, you can do so with relative ease. The search bar and the organization of the site, with categories for the series and the fishing theme, make navigation smooth. However, if you’ve never encountered the slot before and might not usually swim in the same circles, it can be a bit more difficult to discover within the hundreds of other games available.
With an AI recommendation system in place, a user could see their experience on arrival transform. Now, the program will present them with what their data says they’ll most likely want to see. If they’re a regular player of one game over another, the AI will spot that, offer a swift return, and picks that are very similar.
So, in the case of Big Bass Trophy Catch, the user could discover it by playing another slot with a fishing theme, or that has multiplier bonuses to unlock. The AI would present the homepage or a little personalized pop-up that shows recommendations that are very closely aligned to the data offered by the user. This way, there’s a regular chance to refine the tool and recommendations based on their interactions with what the AI offers up.
One of the biggest champions of this in the space of massive platforms is Amazon. As detailed in the AI piece Amazon News released, their tech has evolved from simply recommending books based on previous purchases into ways for customers to “quickly discover and evaluate products,” creating a cycle of ever-improving personalization.
Generating the Site on the Fly
Websites are inherently rigid, regardless of the array of interactive aspects that you may implement. It offers familiarity, and those sites that have mastered the craft will make navigation as natural as it is enjoyable. The next step for AI implementation, however, will be generative UI and, essentially, creating pages on the fly.
This has been mused by the LLMs Are Effective UI Generators paper from Google. They propose that users should come to an AI prompt, put in what they want to see or know, and then let the generative UI develop a page filled with the information and media that the user would want to see. It looks to be a way for every user to get a personalized experience on any website that runs the tool.
For this to be deployed by individuals, websites will still need to be built, as the AI will likely need a source to draw from. However, with all of the required information and inputs in place, the AI could then generate a UI that directly delivers exactly what the user wants to see based on their input and user data.
It’s a capability that Google is presently testing across its platforms. Naturally, Gemini will be among the first to run out this capability, giving users a glimpse into its potential for their online platforms. Should it take, and become accessible, websites could combine the power of AI insights with AI generation to enable a new tier of personalization for users.
Personalization is the path to increased customer engagement and customer conversions. If implemented well, or through the burgeoning UI generators Google touts, AI can become a very useful tool for businesses that rely on their websites to sell to customers.
