Tech had a part in the dropouts that made it seem like the stuff of champions-Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates-it’s an impressive list. They grew up to reshape the world. As adults.

Add Depict.ai Founder and CEO Oliver Edholm to that elite group. Now 19 years old, he’s going his own way, too. At age 15 his summer internship in Klarna turned into a software development job while finishing high school at night. At the age of 16, he went to Singapore to start a new chapter.

The Y Combinator alum completed the $ 17 million Series A in February and wasted no time.

This is often the case with people on passionate business missions. In Edholm’s case, his breakthrough was the knowledge that 35% of Amazon’s sales result from product recommendations, but few (if any) competing eCommerce players have recommendation technology to rival they.

Speaking to Karen Webster of PYMNTS, Edholm explained that the “related products” widgets delivered by Amazon use some form of artificial intelligence, and AI now requires a lot of data to function properly. “Most eCommerce merchants don’t have as much data as Amazon,” he said.

“The‘ product related ’widgets you see on Amazon have made us democratic, [providing the ability for] great recommendations for all eCommerce stores. ”

Depict.ai’s disruptive innovation creates a recommendation engine which any eCommerce site can integrate “to provide recommendations without much data, and thereby to create really high quality recommendations and provide of better value. “

If there is no amount of data on a particular consumer or group persona, the recommendations use AI to gain an understanding of consumers as they shop based on real-time observations.

Combining data on what a consumer browses and buys along with the right product information allows online users to understand “eCommerce products on the site almost the same way it seems to go. you go to the physical retail store and ask for advice from someone there, ”he said.

“That’s the level of understanding we’re trying to translate into what we’re doing, and through it, even if it’s very technical, you can require less data and provide a better service.”

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Painless IT Recommendations

Even after two years of digital shifting, some merchants still need to be encouraged that technologies like AI can have a transformative impact on their eCommerce business.

To cope with this, Depict.ai lets eCommerce sites use its recommendations-as-a-service platform for free, running a straight-up A/B test that shows sales that with and without recommendations.

Edholm said, “When we measured how many purchases were generated through the recommendations, we saw a 2x to 4x increase, which is a lot.”

Continuous conversion measurement tells the retailer which recommendations are not performing and adjusts, continuously measuring the revenue recommendations being generated.

It not only does the front-end job of generating additional sales, but removes the pressure on IT.

“ECommerce merchants have a lot of problems with IT resources,” he said. “What we figured out how to do was develop technology and an onboarding experience where we could integrate without any IT resources from an e-commerce merchant’s perspective. It results in an experience where you can get it live on your site very quickly and see it work. ”

If the merchant does not see an increase from the recommendations within two months, Depict.ai will leave.

“You’ve learned a lot when you work with merchants, and you can get a lot of quick wins. If you can’t properly display recommendations in a user -friendly way in the right place of the website, there’s not much value. two of us.”

With a client list that currently includes “Staples and Office Depot regional components” as well as major Nordic region brands such as Björn Borg Group and Ideal of Sweden, Depict.ai works with the most data available. can be provided by partners, then let’s watch its AI solution. and make suggestions.

As an example, he said, “We’ll get margin data for all your SKUs [stock-keeping units, bar codes] and help mix recommendations to push, say, higher margins or lower returns on products. ” This will be especially useful for clothing sites where returns are a major issue that needs solution.

“You can figure out which items have the lowest returns and then push those,” he says.

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Next: Search

Strategically using an AI -powered recommendation engine can help companies understand which sales strategies work, which don’t, and how to quickly resolve the situation.

Edholm said “many [merchants] they think they need to push more things. We help [that by identifying] what provides the greatest revenue by helping the customer find the product they want. ”

Specializing in businesses with high SKU counts, Depict.ai primarily works in office equipment, fashion, furniture, home decor and jewelry verticals, he told Webster.

In 2022, priorities include moving beyond product recommendations to search.

Edholm said the company’s search engine is in beta with some clients right now.

Expanding the search requires a broader look at the individual searcher, and returning that to recommendations and vice versa so that it becomes a smoother experience. And from the perspective of eCommerce merchants, you can work with [fewer] provider. ”

With the amount of size, color, style, and two dozen other considerations that go into consumer calculus, product recommendations are extremely complex, and Edholm found that eCommerce merchants demand simple, effective solutions. on the platform.

“Our customers are very clear about wanting this thing from us,” he said, “and we’re very focused on making sure we can deliver it, because it’s a complex product.”