Web Development is evolving: are you ready for the changes ahead?
Here at Web Choice we like to keep on top of the latest trends and developments of all that’s going on in the world of web development, and we’ve pulled together a list of the key takeaways for you in case you’re interested in finding out where things are headed.
We’ve actually built a resource hub into our site where you’ll find lots of helpful blogs and articles to read here
The information we’ve compiled on our site is designed to give our clients detailed insights into web design and development and you’ll find plenty of ‘how to’ and ‘problem solving’ exercises.
With the intro out of the way, let’s get going with this particular article on what’s going on with development right now, so here we go:
The lowdown on where we are with AI & machine learning
AI isn’t going anywhere!
It will come as no surprise to anyone that the AI market is expected to continue to grow at a rapid pace and is projected to reach the eye watering sum of 126 billion U.S. dollars globally by 2025. This figure includes many different applications in the AI industry, such as large language models (such as Open AI’s Chat GPT), robot process automation (examples here include data collection, analytics and supply chain management), and machine learning (employed for use cases such as image recognition and social media functionality) Source; statista.com > Link
The implications for Web Development
How will all this affect web development you ask? Well, in very simple terms, AI promises to make development quicker, more efficient, and with fewer bugs and errors. Right now AI can already help write code for templates and layouts following some basic prompting. It’s fair to say that the benefits of using AI for development are mainly on reducing costs rather than increasing quality, though that is likely to change in the near future. Where there are clear advantages is in using data to inform the user experience (UX). What AI does extremely well is to process vast quantities of data and extract valuable insights.
As an example, it can analyze how thousands of people interact with a web page and then recommend changes that will reflect better with how it is being used in the real world. It is also incredibly good at identifying errors in complex code, before suggesting fixes, or even automatically correcting them. These changes are incremental so it’s difficult to see on a day-by-day basis anything fundamental that’s changed in the way web sites are designed and built, but there will come a time (and that time is not too far away) when the industry will look back and understand that virtually every aspect of web development is aided in some way by AI and machine learning.
What does the future have in store for E-Commerce?
Are we ready to have a better relationship with Chatbots?
Arguably the most prolific demonstration of the impact of artificial intelligence in the e-commerce industry is that of the chatbot. We all know that feeling of frustration that comes when we interact with a Chatbot that doesn’t appear intelligent enough to understand exactly what we want from them. While there is definitely some kickback against the use of Chatbots, the stats show us that perception is actually fairly nuanced.
When it comes to consumer personalization, 43% of shoppers report that they are comfortable with AI for this use case. Meanwhile 28% are happy to check order status using AI, and a whopping 91% of shoppers in Latin America use AI to obtain product information. Source; statista.com > Link
Chatbots will continue to evolve in much the same way that large language models will, and we can see this trend in the example of voice assistants, where popular consumer brands such as Sony use voice recognition for product searches, which prove to be quicker and more inclusive. Chatbots have huge potential for B2B where companies competing with similar products are often only differentiated by the quality of service they offer, and hence the B2B with the better bot is the one that wins the day!
Dynamic Pricing
A compelling use of AI that stands to benefit the consumer as much as the retailer is in real-time price adjustment. With it’s power to assess millions of data points per second, AI can monitor markets in realtime and adjust pricing based on consumer behaviors, competitor analysis, product scarcity, and demand surge. There are plenty of examples of this use of AI in action right now; Walmart and Amazon both harness dynamic pricing. If you fill a basket with random products, leave them there, and return the next day, the prices will have changed overnight. Movie theaters and sporting events also implement dynamic pricing, as more tickets are sold for a venue, the price rises accordingly.
Consumer Targeting
AI can take dynamic racing one stage further, by offering specific customers unique pricing models based on their demographics. You are likely to have experienced this in action yourself if you’ve ever received an email from a website you recently visited offering you a unique discount if you take action and click the link. Audible can send you recommendations of audiobooks based on the books you’ve already read and as AI gets ever-smarter, it isn’t just recommending books in the same series, by the same author, or even in the same genre, it can spot patterns from big data that would otherwise be imperceptible to us, so it may well recommend a book on planting trees because you’ve read one book on climate change, another on knitting, and one more on advanced algebra… we might not join the dots, and AI doesn’t even have to know the reason behind such trends, it just knows and trusts in the data for these incredible insights.
What does this mean for your business?
Time for a consultation
Web Choice were early to embrace AI and over the last decade we’ve successfully integrated complex AI components into mobile apps and e-commerce platforms . If you think your platform could benefit from AI, or are simply curious to find out more, we’d love to chat with you. Give us a call now for a free consultation session.
