Canadian Tire, a beloved Canadian retailer, has taken a bold step into the future of shopping with its new AI-powered assistant, CeeTee. This innovative tool is changing the way Canadians buy tires, making the process easier and more personalized than ever before.
Imagine you’re Erin Gates, a busy mom from Calgary, Alberta. With four kids involved in winter sports, you’re constantly on the road, battling snow, slush, and ice. When you need new winter tires for your minivan, the task can seem daunting. That’s where CeeTee comes in, offering a friendly, knowledgeable guide through the tire-buying process.
CeeTee, represented by a smiling, waving red triangle, is more than just a cute mascot. It’s a sophisticated AI tool that can chat with customers via voice or text, answering questions, comparing tires, checking stock, and making personalized recommendations. For Erin, this meant quickly finding three different winter tire options, complete with prices and local store availability. The experience, she says, was like talking to a tire expert right in the store.
Launched in March, CeeTee is available through Canadian Tire’s app. While most of Canadian Tire’s sales still happen in their 500-plus physical stores across Canada, up to 80% of these transactions start with a visit to the retailer’s website. Recognizing this trend, Canadian Tire created CeeTee to help customers find the right tires before they even step foot in a store.
The development of CeeTee aligns perfectly with Canadian Tire’s mission to make life better for Canadians. As Ilana Santone, senior vice president of digital and connected retail at Canadian Tire Corporation (CTC), explains, connecting customers with the right products is their top priority as a retailer. CeeTee was born out of a desire to remove friction from the online shopping experience and get customers to the right product faster and more easily.
But CeeTee isn’t just a simple chatbot. Developed in partnership with Microsoft, it runs on Azure OpenAI Service and uses OpenAI’s GPT-4, combining internal product data with the knowledge from the large language model. This allows CeeTee to provide accurate, tailored advice to each customer. Canadian Tire took great care in developing CeeTee, conducting extensive testing to avoid potential errors and implementing controls to prevent misuse.
Privacy is also a top concern. Canadian Tire’s data privacy policy ensures that all customer information provided during interactions with CeeTee is anonymized and only used to improve the model. Customers are asked for their consent before using the tool. Since its launch, CeeTee has attracted nearly 10,000 users and logged over 700,000 chat sessions, showing its popularity among Canadian Tire’s customers.
The choice to start with tires wasn’t random. Tires have been at the core of Canadian Tire’s offerings since two brothers bought a Toronto tire shop in 1922. Today, the company holds about 18% of Canada’s tire market. CeeTee is seen as an opportunity to not only increase this market share but also to better serve the 2.2 million active customers who use Canadian Tire’s app.
Cari Covent, Canadian Tire’s head of AI and emerging technology, points out that while they already have a significant market share, the rest of Canada’s tire market is highly fragmented. By offering this type of AI assistance for tire buying, Canadian Tire is setting itself apart from other car service organizations and tire companies.
The retail industry has been using AI for years in areas like inventory management and customer service. However, the advent of generative AI has opened up new possibilities for customer engagement and productivity. Some retailers in the cosmetics and fashion industries are using AI for “virtual try-on” features, allowing customers to see how products might look on them before buying. Canadian Tire’s approach with CeeTee fits into this trend of using AI to enhance the customer experience.
Sudip Mazumder, senior vice president and retail lead at Publicis Sapient, a global digital consultancy, sees CeeTee as a valuable tool for customers facing a complex and potentially costly decision. Tire needs can vary greatly depending on location and driving habits. A driver in rainy Vancouver will have different requirements than a commuter in snowy Saguenay, Quebec. CeeTee can help streamline this decision-making process.
John Motuz, a resident of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, had a positive experience with CeeTee. Planning to buy all-weather tires soon, he found the tool easy to use and helpful. He appreciated how quickly it provided good suggestions based on his car information and tire preferences.
While the potential of AI in retail is vast, Mazumder emphasizes that it can never fully replace human interaction. The human touch remains crucial in retail, and an over-reliance on AI could lead to a sterile customer experience. The key is to find the right balance, using AI to enhance rather than replace human customer service.
CeeTee is just one part of Canadian Tire’s broader AI strategy. In June 2023, the company announced a seven-year partnership with Microsoft, aimed at leveraging Azure AI tools to better serve customers and drive innovation in Canada’s retail sector. This partnership builds on nearly a decade of AI implementation at Canadian Tire.
The company’s AI journey began with automating manual tasks. For example, they created a bot that allows purchase coordinators and category business analysts to make bulk changes to active purchase orders, saving the company nearly a million dollars with minimal investment.
Recognizing the importance of data, Canadian Tire brought in a team of data scientists and began moving their data to the Azure cloud platform. They’ve built various AI tools and capabilities, including a centralized analytics platform, a system for better understanding customers, and a solution that uses store-specific data to determine the optimal product mix for each location.
Canadian Tire has also invested in AI literacy within the company. They’ve launched data and AI literacy training programs for board members and employees. They’ve even created an internal chatbot called ChatCTC, which uses Azure OpenAI Service. This tool is used by over 4,300 of Canadian Tire’s corporate employees to summarize documents, generate content, write code, and assist with administrative tasks. According to Covent, ChatCTC saves users between 30 to 60 minutes each day.
The company is taking a measured approach with CeeTee, carefully studying how customers use it. While there’s potential to expand the tool to other product categories and additional channels, including major smartphone operating systems, the focus for now remains on tires.
As Santone puts it, “Tires is a highly, highly complex business. This is really about how we look at the tire journey end to end and remove the friction from buying tires so that we are helping our customers with the best experience on the market.” She adds with a touch of humor, “After all, we’re Canadian Tire. If we can’t solve the tire journey, who will?”
The introduction of CeeTee represents a significant step forward in Canadian Tire’s digital transformation. By leveraging AI to enhance the customer experience, the company is positioning itself at the forefront of retail innovation in Canada. The success of CeeTee could pave the way for similar AI-powered tools in other areas of Canadian Tire’s business, potentially revolutionizing the way Canadians shop for a wide range of products.
However, the implementation of AI in retail also raises important questions about the future of customer service and the role of human employees. While AI can provide quick, personalized recommendations and streamline the shopping process, it can’t replicate the nuanced understanding and empathy that human staff can offer. As Canadian Tire continues to develop and refine its AI tools, finding the right balance between technological efficiency and human touch will be crucial.
The story of CeeTee also highlights the growing importance of data in retail. By leveraging its vast troves of customer and product data, Canadian Tire is able to provide highly personalized recommendations through CeeTee. This underscores the value of data as a strategic asset in modern retail, while also raising important considerations about data privacy and security.
From a broader perspective, Canadian Tire’s AI initiatives reflect a larger trend in the retail industry towards digital transformation and personalization. As consumers increasingly expect seamless, personalized shopping experiences across both digital and physical channels, retailers are turning to AI and other advanced technologies to meet these expectations. Canadian Tire’s success with CeeTee could serve as a model for other retailers looking to enhance their digital offerings.
The development of CeeTee also showcases the potential of partnerships between traditional retailers and tech giants like Microsoft. By leveraging Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service, Canadian Tire was able to create a sophisticated AI tool that might have been beyond its in-house capabilities. This type of collaboration could become increasingly common as retailers seek to stay competitive in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
Looking to the future, the success of CeeTee could have far-reaching implications for Canadian Tire. If the tool proves effective in increasing tire sales and customer satisfaction, it could lead to similar AI-powered assistants for other product categories. We might soon see AI helping customers choose the right sports equipment, home improvement tools, or car accessories.
Moreover, the data gathered through interactions with CeeTee could provide Canadian Tire with valuable insights into customer preferences and behavior. This information could inform everything from inventory management to store layouts to marketing strategies, potentially giving Canadian Tire a significant competitive advantage.
However, as Canadian Tire expands its use of AI, it will need to navigate some potential challenges. Ensuring the accuracy and reliability of AI recommendations will be crucial, especially for products like tires where safety is a major concern. The company will also need to be transparent about its use of AI and customer data to maintain trust with its customer base.
There’s also the question of how CeeTee and similar AI tools might affect Canadian Tire’s workforce. While AI can enhance efficiency and customer service, it’s important to consider how it might impact jobs, particularly in customer-facing roles. Canadian Tire’s approach of using AI to augment rather than replace human staff seems promising, but it will be interesting to see how this balance evolves over time.
From a customer perspective, tools like CeeTee represent a significant improvement in the online shopping experience. The ability to get instant, personalized advice on complex purchases like tires can save time and reduce the stress often associated with these decisions. As AI assistants become more sophisticated, we may see a shift in customer expectations, with personalized, AI-powered advice becoming the norm rather than the exception in online retail.
In conclusion, Canadian Tire’s introduction of CeeTee marks an exciting development in the world of retail AI. By combining the company’s deep knowledge of tires with cutting-edge AI technology, Canadian Tire has created a tool that has the potential to transform the tire-buying experience for millions of Canadians. As the company continues to refine and expand its AI capabilities, it will be fascinating to see how this impacts both Canadian Tire’s business and the broader retail landscape in Canada. The journey of CeeTee is just beginning, but it already offers a compelling glimpse into the future of retail – a future where AI and human expertise work hand in hand to provide the best possible shopping experience.
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