In the era of innovation, where artificial intelligence is taking center stage in revolutionizing industries and simplifying tasks, how can businesses leverage this emerging technology alongside real-world data to generate impact? Foursquare dove into this question and more at the recent Localogy Places 2023 conference in New York City.
Here are our three key takeaways from Building Blocks: More Crucial Now with Generative AI, a session led by Stu Kendall, Director of Product Marketing at Foursquare, and Kelly Benish, VP of Strategic Partnerships at Uberall, and moderated by Mike Boland, Senior Analyst at Localogy.
- Consumer searches are becoming more granular and humanistic
The soar in usage of generative and conversational AI is raising consumers’ expectations on the quality of the services offered to them. This phenomenon is transforming the relationship between location data and SEO, extending its impact across digital marketing. For one, consumers are shifting from keyword-based searches to language that is more natural and human-like. Additionally, this shift affects SEO and Places data, as searches become increasingly detailed and specific. Because of this trend, data providers must adapt their software to help businesses optimize their online presence for nuanced searches.
- Personalized experiences are key to keeping customers engaged
Not only do consumers expect accurate and granular search results, they are best engaged when offered personalized experiences. Tailored-to-the-individual offerings are possible through apps that are built with technology that can understand what is important to a consumer — whether that is accessibility, the availability of a certain amenity, a place’s ambience, or something else. Based on data points obtained from consumers’ previous searches, an app can keep a record of the consumers’ aggregated tastes and preferences, continuously feeding and customizing their search results.
- Any AI model is only as good as the data that powers it
The accuracy and reliability of artificial intelligence relies heavily on the quality of the data at its source. If the Places data that powers the search engine of a particular app or software does not accurately reflect real-world points of interest, then businesses will fail to provide a great user experience. For example, if the dataset that feeds an app states that a restaurant is open for certain hours in error, then it will leave a sour taste in the consumer’s mouth when they stop by the restaurant and discover it’s actually closed. This can drastically affect the consumer’s impression of the app, as well as the merchant. Thus, as products and businesses assess how to leverage AI to drive growth, it is essential to also consider the types of data and the level of data quality that makes sense for their strategy.
With the rise in popularity of tools offered by the likes of OpenAI, customer expectations and demands will also increase, underscoring the crucial need for deep and precise location information. Foursquare Places offers 120M+ points of interest with 115+ attributes that encompass operation hours, user-generated reviews, tips, and tastes. More than 60 tags are also offered to provide information on certain features such as wheelchair accessibility, Wi-Fi availability, or if a place is good for a romantic dinner, among others. Foursquare Places also attempts to apply granular categorization of our POI records by leveraging a taxonomy of more than 1,000 place categories. Foursquare’s precise and in-depth dataset is curated by combining first-party ground-truth data, web crawls, and authoritative sources, which are then cleaned and filtered through best-in-class machine learning algorithms to offer industry-leading data of the highest possible quality.
As customized digital experiences and offerings become more and more prevalent in consumers’ daily lives, the consumers’ expectation for businesses and apps to safeguard their personal data also rises. Foursquare can help products and businesses offer tailor-fit solutions and precise search results to their consumers — all while keeping consumer data privacy a priority.
Learn more about Foursquare Places.
Reviewed By: Stu Kendall
