One of the largest e-commerce operators in Southeast Asia – Lazada – introduced a ChatGPT-powered chatbot called LazzieChat to help users optimize their shopping experience

On Thursday, Alibaba-backed Lazada Group launched LazzieChat – an e-commerce AI chatbot. The new AI tool leverages Lazada’s own AI technology and platform,?powered by the natural language capabilities of OpenAI ChatGPT technology in Azure OpenAI Service.

Available on the Lazada app homepage, LazzieChat can answer users’ shopping queries, suggest relevant products or topics, look up item descriptions and link them to products available on the marketplace platform. The AI tool also provides personalised recommendations, acting as a personal virtual shopping assistant.

At launch, the bot communicates in?English, with more languages to roll out in the future. The service is now open to customers in Singapore, the Philippines, and Indonesia, with the latter also receiving a Bahasa Indonesia version.

The aim of the new service is to make online shopping on Lazada seamless and bridge the gap between offline and online shopping. For shoppers, the chatbot will bring a high-quality consultation experience, while brands can benefit from new technologies helping them to reach out to a wider audience and increase product visibility.

The firm states that LazzieChat would be especially useful when shopping for fast-moving and highly-personalized consumer goods categories such as fashion and beauty. These are also some of the top items purchased on Lazada.