Home goods retailer inspires shoppers through AI, social media

West Elm is upping the ante on how it recommends merchandise to customers.



The company, a division of Williams-Sonoma, introduced a new online tool that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) to detect customers’ style patterns and connect them with products they can buy at West Elm stores and online. Called the Pinterest Style Finder, the tool is powered by Clarifai’s image and video recognition AI technology.



Utilizing images from a Pinterest board (either a user’s own board or someone else’s), the solution recognizes a user’s style and color preferences from the collected array of images. The style finder then filters products from West Elm’s online catalog of nearly 5,000 products, and suggests three options from each product category, including furniture, rugs, curtains, mirrors, and decorative accessories, among other merchandise.



Unlike other recommendation engines that rely on a user’s buying or browsing history, the style finder recognizes the categorization of a customer’s preference. It also begins “learning” a shopper’s style from a single photograph. The tool is an extension of West Elm’s Style & Service program which offers customers design, installation and registry services at each of its 100 stores across the U.S., Australia, Canada and the U.K.



“Our free design consultations often start with customers sharing their Pinterest board to best illustrate their vision in terms of colors and style,” said Luke Chatelain, VP of Innovation at West Elm. “Pinterest boards are an efficient tool to quickly get us on the same page, and understand what inspires our customers visually.”



By launching the new tool, West Elm was able to further automate the process, and “provide our customers with a seamless experience when seeking design guidance, as well as to streamline the process of searching for home products that best express their personal style,” Chatelain added. “It’s a great resource for us to take direct input from our customers and be able to deliver the personalized products and styles our customers are most interested in.”