Flipkart Adds Voice Assistant in Its Grocery app 'Supermart'

Flipkart has introduced an AI voice assistant in its grocery store app, Supermart. This voice assistant can understand commands in English and Hindi right now, however the company plans to add support for vernacular languages in the future. Flipkart aims to assist customers in bagging groceries just by their voice with the new feature. This AI platform has been developed by Flipkart's in-house technology team and it can detect what language is being spoken, then carry out a shipping-related conversation with the customer. Flipkart says the voice assistant makes the shopping experience more personal and natural.

As per a press release, the voice assistant capability has been implemented in Supermart, Flipkart's dedicated grocery e-store app for Android. It can understand e-commerce categories and products, perform tasks such as searching for a product, understand product details, place an order, and more. The AI assistant can “transcribe, translate, transliterate and understand the user's intent to have engaging shopping-related conversations in various Indian languages,” according to Flipkart.

Shoppers can speak out what product they are looking for and the voice assistant will find it for them. They may also get information about a particular product from the assistant. The voice assistant will help customers in adding items to their cart by using their voice but the checkout and payment part will most likely have to be done manually.

“As consumers shopping for groceries have a clear intent to buy with knowledge of specific products, Flipkart's voice assistant will help users build their grocery baskets with multiple products quickly and efficiently and make their journey seamless and natural,” the company said in a statement.

As of now, the voice assistant is only available to English and Hindi speaking customers using the Supermart app on Android devices as it is the only platform the app is available on. Flipkart says it will gradually make its way to iOS, as well as the website.

At the time of writing, the voice assistant in the Supermart app was not working and Gadgets 360 has reached out to Flipkart to get clarity around its availability. We will update this space as and when we get a response.