Coop Sweden has signed up with a UK Artificial Intelligence (AI) lab to build the “world’s most advanced grocery retail AI assistant” for its customers via apps, web or Google assistant.

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Under the partnership with EBI.AI, the digital personal assistant, called Cooper, will launch in spring 2020. The digital assistant will provide users with a concierge for Coop Sweden’s customers’ daily needs.

Initially Cooper will understand each customer’s dietary requirements, suggest recipes, provide nutritional and loyalty scheme information, but in the future it will handle all aspects of customer engagement.

By combining the digital and in-store journeys, customer experience will be enhanced and life made easier for shoppers, Coop Sweden said.

Co-op Sweden chief digital officer Amer Mohammed said: “Coop wants to build a level of customer experience that is unparalleled in the Swedish retail marketplace. The work that EBI.AI is doing for us gives us a tool to build strong relationships with our customers and support them with an important part of their daily life.

“I look forward to driving this development that will change both how we shop and how we eat.”

EBI.AI is using its data engineering expertise, Lobster AI communications platform and Adobe Experience Cloud to provide the solution.

EBI.AI md Matthew Doel said: “It is a privilege to work with Coop in Sweden as the company is serious about delivering extraordinary customer experience and an excellent example for others to follow.”

Coop is one of Sweden’s largest grocery chains with 817 stores and is owned by the Swedish Cooperative Union (KF).