Conversational Commerce Is Not the Revolution You’re Being Sold. It is way older than that. Just ask Paul Sweeney. He literally exited state left a few years ago. Paul was founder of Webio, a conversational platform that almost 12 years ago drew the first diagram helping me understand the opportunity. They turned this into a brilliant niche case for utility and FS businesses across the UK. Over the course of the next decade, this team hosted the biggest thinkers in conversational commerce, AI powered and LLM led products, finishing this in 2022 or 2023.
At one point, I remember in the earlier days, he called me to fully understand how ads worked, how they failed and why there was possibility in conversations to make things more contextual . He called me as I was consulting with an Ice cream brand in London, who specialised in protein ice cream. He described the possibility of a post work out treat but still getting the gains form the session.
Google ads has 4 - 7 touch points during that journey and brings you from ads, to maps to a website back etc. A conversational guide could lead you, in real time, to a vending machine, in the building, knowing it had stock and it’s price. Oh and as you are a gym member, you get 20% off these 2 brands this week. What was possible then is still not fully happening now. Not due to lack of the use case but the tech is not fully embedded ( this is changing) but adoption is not there yet. It is changing, but slowly. Also, this is not so different a scenario that is being purported to be the “new way”.
I say all this and yet I have said many times the existing way for commerce is not the best way, and I am yet to come up with that solution. What is emerging is a changing landscape through which to think about the interaction. Removing our human selves from this loop - this is the way we have always done it.
