Building an AI-first organization for the future of online marketplaces

Online marketplace, Carousell also utilizes a similar deep learning model to help its users list items faster. When a user creates a listing, the Carousell app scans photos taken by users during the selling process and suggests categories and product titles.

The impact of AI to drive key business results is real. As one of the pioneers in the field, eBay reported that AI-powered improvements drive more than $1 billion per quarter in sales on its marketplace. With that kind of business impact, AI plays such a crucial role in the present and future of classifieds and online marketplaces. Companies need to rethink, even going to so far as to remake themselves in order to succeed in an AI-first world. But, what does an AI-first organization mean in practice?

In my experience, AI-first organizations need both centralized and decentralized AI functions. Centralized AI research teams are tasked with keeping up with techology trends, whether they create new research projects or even develop new applications. Successful research can then be put into production, by working together with engineering teams.

While a centralized AI function is a necessary first step for any organization, decentralizing AI know-how to product teams is probably the key piece to enabling organizations to ship AI features for business impact. Educating internal designers and product managers, ensures these features are designed and experimented frequently. Disseminating this knowledge can be achieved by embedding data scientists and machine learning engineers in the various product teams to work with product manager and software engineers.

Besides education, internal training for engineers allows them to familiarise themselves and try out new technology. Major tech companies are embracing such programmes such as Facebook AI Academy, where engineers are offered training opportunities in deep learning classes or immersion program inside AI research teams.

The importance of AI and deep learning can only increase for all companies, not just for classifieds and online marketplaces. As the volume of unstructured image, video, text and voice data increases, there is an opportunity for companies to use AI and derive valuable insights for their customers. Therefore, building up one’s AI capabilities, and positioning organizations to be AI-first will be critical for success.