I saw the future of retail, and it’s all AI
Several people are gathered around a bleach blond man in a bright pink suit suspended in a clear plastic tube. With a microphone in front of him and a giant sign reading TALK TO ME placed above, "Mike" waits, hands clasped patiently in front of his body, to take questions from his public. "Mike" is a hologram, powered by ChatGPT and created by a company called Hypervsn.
The responses "Mike" gives to audience comments and questions are on a three-ish second delay, but the stunted flow of conversation might not matter much - an attendant at the Hypervsn booth tells me that when "Mike" and his ilk are deployed to stores, they are meant to act …