There are many ways that facial recognition is being used today and will be used in the future. Law enforcement officers can use facial recognition to identify suspected criminals from video footage, government agencies can use face recognition technology to spot suspected terrorists as they attempt to come into other countries.
Face recognition software has helped to locate sex trafficking victims and missing persons. It has been used by almost every Facebook user to tag their friends in photos. It has been placed on smartphones to use as a login. And in retail, it is being used to zero in on the customer’s needs, which will, of course, lead to more money being spent. In our next 2 articles, we will take a look at face recognition and its application in retail.
Brick and Mortar Retail Isn’t Dead
As Face First points out, many people are starting to believe that the brick and mortar retail business is soon to be a thing of the past. Internet sites like Amazon, Overstock, and others allowed an introverted internet generation to stay home and do their shopping from the comfort of their couches. With well-known retail chains such as Toys R Us going out of business, things looked pretty grim for the small retail shop. The truth is, however, that retail shopping is not dying. It isn’t even sick. It has simply been in a cocoon rebranding itself into an entirely new creature. And soon it is likely to emerge as an A.I. butterfly.
AI and Face Recognition Brings Marketing to a Whole New Level
Dave Sutton of Business 2 Community and Top Right feels that AI is changing the landscape of marketing. As we have shared before, ad blocking has all but put a stop to those huge, full-page ads that once ruled the internet, and opened up a whole new path for the growth of face recognition. Ad-blocking features are forcing marketing specialists to find new ways to get information about their products into the faces of potential customers.
While the intruding video ads and full-page images of yesterday’s ad campaign pushed customers away, marketers are learning how face recognition and AI can actually lure them in. That’s good news for marketing, but how does it apply to retailers?
Is It Only Make-Believe?
Remember how shows like Star Trek portrayed virtual reality as a thing of the future where a person could actually see sights and feel experiences that were not really there? In those shows, the programs were almost always used for recreation. Someone onboard the ship would slip off into one of the hologram rooms and escape from their reality for a bit. Just like the Minority Report, this portrayal of the future had some truth in it.
Using face recognition technology and AI, advertisers can now bring the experience of using a product to the customer before the customer ever even sees the product! This “virtual reality” experience allows the retailer to personalize ads and cater to each individual customer on a level that was not possible before. We call it “try it before you buy it.” In next week’s article, we will explain how this is possible, and how it applies to retail stores all over the world.