Generative AI: 5 business examples to inspire you

Generative AI is a dynamic market presenting new creative possibilities: 78% of well-known brands¹ are already using it in their marketing strategies. Among the main ways² in which it is being used are content creation (76%²), inspiration (71%²), image generation (62%²)…

This means that businesses must keep a constant watch on the different possibilities of generative AI and monitor how cutting-edge brands are using new technologies.

Check out these 5 examples of generative AI used by businesses, to get some ideas.

Generative AI: definition

Generative artificial intelligence is a specific type of AI which has been trained on colossal volumes of data and can generate new content from existing content: texts, images, videos, music...

The advantage of this type of AI lies in its producing content resembling³ the content created by humans.

Some of the most popular generative⁴ AI models are ChatGPT, DALL-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, Bard…

5 examples of how businesses are using generative AI

1. Creation of an ad campaign for Heinz

Heinz created an ad campaign built around generative AI.

To begin with, the brand asked the Open AI image generation⁵ tool, DALL-E 2, what it thought ketchup looked like, without mentioning any specific brand.

Whatever the query: « Renaissance Ketchup », « Street Art Ketchup », « Impressionism Ketchup »… the images generated by DALL-E 2 systematically corresponded to the specific codes of the Heinz brand⁵: shape of the bottle, label design, color...

This experience underlined the brand's iconic character, and generated images they could use to create marketing materials: commercial, social network content, printed ads… They used this process to prove that « just like humans, AI prefers Heinz⁶ ».

2. Zalando's fashion assistant

Zalando plans to use generative AI to optimize its online customer experience and to help shoppers to choose the ideal product from among 1.8 million references⁷.

The brand is planning a Spring launch of the beta version of its ChatGPT powered « fashion assistant ». Shoppers can chat directly with this assistant, using their own words, to receive personalized advice.

For example, if you ask the Zalando fashion assistant, « what should I wear to a July wedding in Santorini?⁸ » the assistant will provide customized recommendations depending on the query, and will consider many details: the weather in July, the culture in the local region, the formality of the event… It could also consider the shopper's brand preferences, as well as the availability of articles in their size.

3. Nike and Obvious partnership

In the Nike By You program, Obvious used generative AI to customize a pair of Nike sneakers.

Obvious is a collective of artists using generative artificial intelligence to « reinterpret an art movement⁹ » or « create original content⁹ ». They are among the 21 artists chosen by Nike to customize the brand's sneakers around the theme « Paris of the future ».

To find the unique color to use in their co-creation, Obvious informed the AI algorithms with images of three different Nike¹⁰ shoe designs: Air max 1, Air max 90 and Air max 97.

4. The Transav-IA recommendation

Transavia, airline company, launched « Transav-IA », a recommendation engine based on ChatGPT generative AI¹¹.

This « travel assistant¹¹ » provides users with travel suggestions based on their preferences¹¹: price, distance, flight duration…

Transavia highlights¹² the benefits this technology brings to their clients, and also uses it to suggest « destinations which they may never have thought of themselves ».

Transav-IA has enabled the company to promote the 120 destinations in its catalog in France, Europe, and the Mediterranean basin.

5. Creation of Carrefour's product datasheets

Carrefour uses ChatGPT-4 generative AI¹³ technology in order to « get ahead of the competition and invent the retail environment of the future ».

One example is the group's use of this technology to create product datasheets for over 2000 product references, by generating titles, descriptions, nutritional values… The teams save a lot of time producing their product datasheets while providing more detailed information to their customers.

The group also uses this technology for other tasks¹⁴ such as writing bids to tender or analyzing quotes from suppliers.

To take it further, some Product Information Management (PIM) solutions have integrated advanced AI features to increase your productivity in the creation and optimization of product datasheets: translation into several languages, verification of consistency, organization of information, adaptation to each target… and to facilitate quick and targeted distribution of datasheets on all selling channels.

¹ Roy, P. (2023, September 28). IA générative : 78 % des grandes marques l'intègrent à leur stratégie marketing. mind Media.
² Salesforce. (2023, October 24). Top Generative AI Statistics for 2023.
³ IA générative : définition, avantages et inconvénients. Salesforce.
⁴ Intelligence artificielle générative : de quoi parle-t-on ? (2023, September 14).
⁵ Gmelch, A. (2023, May 23). L'IA générative et l'e-commerce : exemples et avantages - Blog Lengow.
⁶ Salgues, F. (2022, December 16). Les meilleures campagnes marketing à base d'intelligence artificielle.
⁷ Serrano, E. (2023, April 19). Zalando va lancer un assistant virtuel de mode alimenté par ChatGPT. ecommercemag
⁸ Zalando to launch a fashion assistant powered by ChatGPT. (2023, April 19). Zalando Corporate Website.
⁹ Daffourd, V. (2021, April 14). Obvious, ces génies français qui créent de l'Art grâce à l'Intelligence artificielle. Forbes France.
¹⁰ Obvious X Nike – Obvious.
¹¹ Auffray, C. (2023, March 30). Transavia s'empare de l'IA générative pour recommander des voyages. ZDNet France.
¹² Marcel, M., & Marcel, M. (2023, April 25). Transavia et Frichti s'associent pour donner le goût du voyage avec Marcel. Publicis Groupe - France.
¹³ Confrère, E. (2023, June 8). Carrefour s'associe avec ChatGPT pour simplifier les courses de ses clients. Le Figaro.
¹⁴ Auffray, C. (2023, June 9). Carrefour passe à la vitesse IA générative sur l'e-commerce avec ChatGPT et GPT-4. ZDNet France.