How 3 businesses tapped niche tech solutions to automate advertising, brick-and-mortar retailing, and product delivery:
- PODS moving and storage company tapped generative AI and geolocation tech to create 6,000 unique advertising messages for 299 different New York City neighborhoods.
- VenHub has created a self-operating convenience store that can be placed in a range of locations and dispense a wide variety of products using its robotic arms, no employees necessary.
- Gatik is using its self-driving trucks to deliver products from warehouses to Kroger and Sam’s Club stores, streamlining online orders and boosting customer service.
Technologies that boost automation such as generative artificial intelligence, robotics, and driverless vehicles are rapidly becoming mainstream, and companies are seizing on niche business opportunities where they can be applied successfully.
Storage and moving container company PODS, for example, conducted an ad campaign in which it combined geospatial location technology with generative AI to advertise its services with unique messages for different neighborhoods.
VenHub Global, meanwhile, took the concept of robotic arms that are used in automated warehouses and made them the centerpiece of an unmanned convenience store.
And while most people are likely familiar with the use of driverless taxis, Gatik is tapping into the demand for middle-mile delivery with driverless trucks that transport products over relatively short distances from warehouses to retail stores.
Research from Duke University found that nearly 60% of companies surveyed—and 84% of large companies—have implemented software, equipment, or technology to automate tasks previously completed by employees in the past year. They have done so to increase product quality (58%), increase output (49%), and reduce labor costs (47%).
PODS combines geolocation tech with generative AI to create targeted ads that drive results
The use of generative AI to help create marketing content has been recognized as one of the more productive ways for businesses to leverage the technology. Generative AI can bring efficiencies to the process by creating first drafts of written content in just seconds or by serving up dozens of image ideas with just a few prompts.
Combining AI-aided content creation with geolocation technology—at scale and in real time—represents an innovative and experimental application of AI’s capabilities.
Marketing agency Tombras took on exactly that challenge with a dynamic digital outdoor advertising campaign for PODS, the moving container service. The digital, hyper-targeted ads were displayed on the side of a PODS truck that roamed through New York City, presenting more than 6,000 different messages specific to each of 299 different neighborhoods.
“We made the world’s smartest billboard,” said Juan Tubert, Chief Technology Officer at Tombras, in a YouTube video describing the effort.
The messages were created using Google’s Gemini AI platform, which had been trained using PODS branding materials and other content. As the truck traveled from location to location, the ads responded to various inputs such as time, weather, traffic conditions, and subway delays to create localized content.
For example, one billboard displayed: “73 degrees out? Spend the day at Coney Island, not hauling boxes.”
“The result? A dynamic billboard that actually feels like it’s part of the city,” Calvin Fields, VP of Brand and Media at PODS, told CO— this fall.
PODS said the campaign drove a 60% increase in website visits and a 33% increase in quote requests in one week, the biggest year-over-year jump in those metrics that the company had ever seen.
[Read more: How Brands Are Using AI to Optimize Digital Out-of-Home Advertising]
Technologies that boost automation such as generative artificial intelligence, robotics, and driverless vehicles are rapidly becoming mainstream.
VenHub stores staffed by robotic arms bring employee-free retail concept to shopping landscape
Robotic arms have long been performing a variety of tasks in automated warehouses and factories, but their use in consumer-facing applications has been minimal.
A handful of cafes and restaurants have experimented with automated food and beverage service, but VenHub has made them the centerpiece of its convenience-store–sized vending machines.
Shahan Ohanessian, Co-founder and CEO of VenHub Global, launched the company in 2021 with a vision for a completely automated retail concept. The stores feature two robotic arms that fetch items from shelves and place them on dispensing platforms, which are then lowered into reach-in compartments where customers can grab them. Customers order and pay for their products via the VenHub mobile app.
The company has opened five of the employee-free stores so far and has been in talks with potential buyers to open hundreds more around the country, representing an opportunity for entrepreneurs or established retail store operators and brands. VenHub’s business model calls for building the stores and selling them for a profit while collecting ongoing SaaS (software as a service) and maintenance fees.
The early iterations of the VenHub stores offer commonly purchased goods such as grocery items and personal care products, but Ohanessian said he believes the model can be adapted to a range of product categories, from pet supplies and consumer electronics to luxury goods.
“We’ve been blessed with demand,” Ohanessian told CO— in October.
[Read more: VenHub Founder on its Robotic, Employee-Free Retail Stores (and Empowering Entrepreneurs)]
Driverless delivery for the 'middle mile' between warehouses and retail stores boosts supply chain efficiency
Robotic carts delivering groceries to people’s homes have become great fodder for social media, and they very well may be the last-mile solution of the future for product delivery.
In addition, the early tests of driverless 18-wheelers cruising autonomously down the highways of Texas making long-haul freight deliveries have garnered big headlines.
However, in between those two ends of the supply chain lie the so-called “middle miles,” where products need to get from warehouses to local stores. That’s where autonomous trucking company Gatik is providing a solution: box trucks that are traveling back and forth from warehouses to stores in tests with Kroger and Sam’s Club in the Dallas market.
By consistently making delivery runs 18 to 20 hours per day, Kroger has been able to speed the e-commerce fulfillment process and improve customer service levels, said Mike Baker, Head of Final Mile at Kroger, in a video posted by Gatik.
[Read more: Autonomous Delivery May Soon Arrive for Companies Large and Small]
The quick growth of autonomous delivery options—from driverless trucks to drones—indicates the technology could soon become more widely accessible for small and medium-sized businesses, too.
Indeed, “the rapid expansion of e-commerce, rising consumer demand for faster and more convenient deliveries, and significant advancements in technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and electric vehicles” is driving tremendous growth of the $0.5 billion autonomous delivery market in the United States, according to a Market.us report.
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