Le Pain Quotidien tests digital customer clones
Le Pain Quotidien is embracing AI to enhance customer engagement and operational efficiency through its new digital assistant, Alain.AI. Initially developed to help franchisees streamline menu development, Alain.AI is now being leveraged to create "digital customer clones" by analyzing data from its loyalty program and social outreach. These digital personas will help the chain gain insights into customer preferences globally, influencing recipe changes and menu localization.
The AI-powered assistant, built on OpenAI’s GPT-4, is set to transform how the brand interacts with both franchisees and customers. Franchisees can query Alain.AI for recipe instructions or even develop new ones tailored to local preferences. As Le Pain Quotidien expands into new markets, this technology ensures consistency while catering to regional tastes.
The third phase of this AI rollout will focus on increasing loyalty program membership by granting members access to Alain.AI for exclusive features, such as cooking classes and recipe access. This blend of AI-driven personalization with operational tools marks a significant shift in how brands can scale customer insights while delivering localized experiences.
On the surface, Le Pain Quotidien’s new AI assistant, which embodies the knowledge and recipes of founder and creative director Alain Coumont, is a tool for franchisees to quickly execute menu development. But the bakery chain has more ambitious plans to use it to create digital twins of customers and query them for insights.
Alain.AI will create personas from real customer data, including that which has been acquired from members of the brand’s loyalty program, the Tartine Club, as well as that of non-members collected via social outreach. While these datasets will be anonymized to protect user privacy, they can still be treated as digital copies of real people.
For example, Le Pain Quotidien can train Alain.AI on current trends around food and beverages, and then direct the platform to question the personas based on those trends.
“We can see what are the products that people really want worldwide,” said Annick Van Overstraeten, CEO of Le Pain Quotidien.
Full story at AdAge.
