How Liverpool ONE is leveraging AI to enhance its customer experience

Liverpool ONE has introduced a new AI-powered digital assistant to enhance its customer experience, with personalised Taylor Swift interactions to engage visitors ahead of the singer's three sell-out concerts this week.

Named ‘Liv’, the digital human has joined Liverpool ONE’s guest services team to support customers and staff, and to collect feedback on ways to improve the visitor experience.

It has been brought to the destination by Sum Vivas, a Liverpool-based tech business that won Grosvenor and Liverpool ONE’s Innovation Challenge last year, working in collaboration with investment and innovation firm, True.

Rob Sims, Founder and CEO of Sum Vivas, said: "Winning Liverpool ONE’s Innovation Challenge has awarded us the opportunity to further develop and showcase the benefits our AI-powered Digital Assistants bring, and the value they can add to both the customer journey and collating insights.

"Grosvenor and Liverpool ONE have been great partners, and we are excited to see how visitors engage with Liv."

Sum Vivas’ hyper-realistic, AI-powered Digital Humans have previously been showcased at New York Fashion Week and are designed to communicate, interact and engage with people.

Engineered with natural language processing and machine learning capabilities, the digital assistant is able to understand and respond to a wide range of queries in real-time and has been designed to interact with customers at Liverpool ONE.

Its arrival coincides with a series of Taylor Swift concerts at Anfield Stadium this week as part of her Eras tour, with the destination anticipating an additional 100,000 visitors and a £12 million boost in sales from visitors as a result.

To help visiting Swifties, the digital assistant will be able to answer questions specifically related to the concerts, including "How can I get to Anfield Stadium?" and "What is your favourite Taylor Swift song?", amongst other queries.

Chris Jukes, Grosvenor’s Director of Liverpool ONE, said: "It is brilliant to host Sum Vivas’ digital human, who will not only add something unique to the visitor experience, but also allow us to collect even more insight to inform our future decisions.

"Technology and AI are having a growing influence on the future of retail and it is important we embrace what is available, testing concepts that enhance the experience. That said, we remain committed to balancing these innovations within a human-centric environment and this is reflected in Liv’s ability to provide things like information for Swifties, alongside details about Liverpool ONE’s shops, restaurants and leisure offer."

Liverpool ONE will now assess the impact of the digital assistant on its guest experience over a month-long trial, following which it may be offered a permanent role.

It coincides with the launch of Liverpool ONE’s new Guest Services Team, providing a "welcoming and efficient"  experience to the destination, which hosts over 22 million visitors every year.