Byte-sized AI is a bi-weekly column that covers everything artificial intelligence-Since to start up fundingto newly signed partnerships, AI-based capabilities just launched by major retailers, software providers and supply chain players.
NoFraud, which helps Shopify merchants and businesses verify orders to avoid credit card fraud and unnecessary chargebacks, the acquisition of Yofi AI announced last week. The startup has developed systems to help brands and retailers, like JD Sports Canada, identify abusive purchasing habits, stop fraudulent transactions and reward loyal and legitimate customers.
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Yofi had the backing of venture capital firms such as Nyca Partners, Point72 Ventures and eBay Ventures. NoFraud said the acquisition would help it expand its capabilities and help retailers and brands combat the problem of fraudulent returns.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Jordan Shamir, co-founder and CEO of Yofi AI, said fraud and theft remain major issues affecting brands and retailers of all sizes.
“Political abuses have become the biggest threat to retailers’ margins,” Shamir said in a statement. “This forces merchants to absorb billions of dollars in unnecessary costs and jeopardizes relationships with loyal customers. We built Yofi AI to stop this head-on, and by joining NoFraud, we can take this fight to scale, giving merchants the only platform that protects profits in real time.”
Yofi’s systems will be integrated with NoFraud before the holiday season, the two companies said in the announcement.
Scott Gifis, CEO of NoFraud, said legacy technology solutions cannot provide merchants with an accessible and effective way to track and mitigate issues associated with fraud and malicious purchases. He hopes that joining forces with Yofi will help companies close this gap.
“With Yofi AI, we are taking a big step forward in changing the way traders manage risk,” Gifis said in a statement. “Existing tools were not designed for today’s realities. Our platform addresses risks where they happen, in real time, protecting margins and helping merchants grow.”
Frasers Group announced this week that it is partnering with Trade tools as a way for some of its brands to participate in agent commerce.
Frasers Group said the partnership is the first of its kind in Europe and will affect three of its brands: Sports Direct, Flannels and Frasers. These brands will use Commercetools’ agentic commerce suite to help shoppers discover Frasers’ products via publicly available extended language models (LLMs).
David Clark, chief customer officer at Frasers Group, said the partnership will help the brands involved meet consumers where they are today, while anticipating where they will head next.
“The digital customer ecosystem is evolving faster than ever, and so are customer expectations,” Clark said in a statement. “Through this partnership, Frasers Group is now at the forefront of this evolution to deliver enhanced customer experiences across ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, including native payment in ChatGPT, across Sports Direct, Flannels and Frasers. This marks a shift in our digital capabilities, delivering an even more intuitive and personalized shopping experience for our consumers.”
This announcement follows retail giant Walmart’s announcement that it had in partnership with OpenAI to make items available for purchase directly in ChatGPT. The companies have not revealed when Walmart items will be available through Instant Checkout, but items on Etsy can be actively purchased on the ChatGPT platform. OpenAI announced that “thousands” of Shopify merchants will also be available in the near future, including Vuori and Skims.
Andrew Burton, CEO of Commercetools, said the integration of Frasers Group comes at a critical juncture for the fashion, clothing and retail sectors.
“The future of commerce is agentic, and it’s coming faster than most retailers think,” Burton said in a statement. “Frasers Group understands that when customers begin to delegate their purchases to agents or shop through an LLM, the retailers who win will be those prepared to deliver seamless, reliable and consistent experiences through these agents,” Burton said in a statement.
Google announced last week that it has expanded its AI-powered generative virtual try-on tool, which lets consumers view items on a virtual version of their own image, to include shoes.
The company’s virtual try-on tool, which it expanded a few months agoallows users to see what a single item of clothing might look like on their own body. To test the tool, users upload a full photo of themselves.
Google said it uses “cutting-edge AI that accurately perceives shapes and depths, preserving those subtleties when it shows you what something would look like on you.”
Unlike other companies, Google’s trial experience is limited to one item at a time. So, for example, if a consumer buys a pair of ASOS heels, they can’t also put the shirt of their choice on their digital avatar.
The experience appears to be another game of personalization as big tech companies continue to advance their AI-driven offerings and consumers shift their purchasing habits.
First look announced this week that it is allowing “major retailers” to beta test a new conversational AI co-pilot it calls Ellis.
First Insight hasn’t revealed which of its customers have started participating in the beta test, but it is partnering with companies like Under Armour, Kohl’s, Francesca’s and Marks & Spencer.
Ellis is intended to help brands and retailers with scenario planning, leveraging predictive analytics and natural language processing (NLP) to provide real-time insights that can shorten the decision process.
First Insight said Ellis can leverage internal data to help planners, merchandisers and other retail professionals ensure their assortments match consumers’ interests and expectations; understand the best price for specific items; forecast demand; align marketing spend and campaigns with sales goals; reduce time to market and much more.
First Insight is testing the tool as retailers head into the holiday season, which is one of the most critical times of the calendar year for the industry. This is especially true as the macroeconomic environment fluctuates and vacation spending among certain generations, particularly Gen Z, is expected to decline.
Greg Petro, CEO of First Insight, said the tool will help brands and retailers integrate data into many of the decisions they make, which can enrich the decision and provide solid reasoning for their actions, rather than making decisions based solely on intuition and historical spending habits.
“Retail no longer wins on intuition,” Petro said in a statement. “Ellis turns signals into decisions (on products, pricing and promotions) when retailers need them most and with competitive insight never before available. It’s about speed with confidence: protecting margins, finding growth and staying in step with customers as they evolve.”
