Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence: Debjani Deb, CEO of ZineOne (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Is the popup customized to different clusters of behavior?

Debjani Deb: Typically, it’s not a popup. The way it renders is that the website itself changes. You wouldn’t even know that it changed. We try very hard to keep away from any kind of hard intervention. The site is changing based on what you are doing.

To answer your question, it’s done at an individual level. What ZineOne is doing is taking that analog of a human DNA. We are maintaining what we call a customer DNA. Every click that I have done either on the website, app, or store is my DNA for Nordstrom for example.

Nordstrom is maintaining a customer DNA of a customer’s activities across all digital endpoints at all times. If NordStrom is going to intervene on my journey, the intervention will be 100% personalized to her journey and her journey alone.

Sramana Mitra: Is there any variation on what we have discussed already that illustrates any other type of use case based on other types of customers, or have we done a sufficient job?

Debjani Deb: There’s one very exciting variation that I’m excited about. This is channel agnostic. It is being deployed around apps and websites, stores, and kiosks.

The most recent rendition has been an integration with Alexa. Voice is becoming very prominent with regards to personalization. For us to trigger a voice command is the same as triggering a message.

Recently, we integrated at one of our hospitality companies. If you walk into the room of this hotel, the TV will greet you. It’s channel agnostic. We are looking forward to this in smart cars. The decision engine of what you need versus what I need remains the same. The rendition of that could happen on any screen as 5G evolves. 

Sramana Mitra: Very interesting. What do you see as adoption levels of your kinds of technology in your target customer base?

Debjani Deb: We are creating a category. We are creating the next generation of what is possible in consumer engagement, which is driven by heavy intelligence at the edge. Therefore, the adoption is with customers who are the leaders of each vertical. We are seeing adoption at the top of the curve. These are folks who would have built it themselves. They will lead the way.

Our strategy has been that we are going to go to the most mature and most sophisticated brands across verticals and have them adopt it. That’s what we are seeing. In the last 18 months, things have changed dramatically. 

Sramana Mitra: What do you see as open problems from your vantage point?

Debjani Deb: We’ve just touched the tip of the iceberg. I imagine a world where your customer engagement endpoints are proliferating at a significant rate.

If you’ve ever been in a Tesla, you know that the entire middle screen is the computer that is driving around. McDonalds bought this company called Dynamic Yield for smart menus. You can only imagine the proliferation of smart endpoints in the next five years. Big data is a given. It’s a thing of the past.

Between those three things, there’s the need for automation to harness that level of data and intelligence so that you can add value to a consumer. There’s just a spectrum of possibilities. It’s endless. ZineOne is doing some of it. I want every consumer engagement to be location-aware, environment-aware, and moment-aware.

That’s just the beginning. Entrepreneurs in the next five years need to think about the spectrum of possibilities with new bandwidth and intelligence endpoints coming online and how they can add value.

Sramana Mitra: Excellent. Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence: Debjani Deb, CEO of ZineOne
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