First Impressions of Pick n Pay’s new AI System – Penny AI.

Pick n Pay has launched and is rolling out its latest AI system.
Called Penny AI it is available on the Pick n Pay asap! app.

First impressions are quite impressive.
A user can ask it simple questions, and it will give a quick and generally accurate answer.
“What is the price of 1kg of Tastic rice?” It returns the available versions of the rice wth the prices and instantly allowing you to Add to Cart.
You can ask “Give me a recipe for Paella”. In fact I spoke the request and it picked it up very well. It gave the full recipe, gave preparation instructions and made a shopping list for me to add each item to the cart.

I asked in Afrikaans if it understands Afrikaans and it answered in perfect Afrikaans.
I asked other questions, like what time does the Epsom Downs store close on Sunday. It gave the wrong answer! This is not surprising as the designers cannot be expected to include all data in its training data. What is essential is that someone monitors questions asked and updates the answers via improved training data. At the moment, it does not look like anyone is monitoring the conversations.

Some questions could not be answered and the system admitted it did not have the answer. It said “I’m sorry, I can’t help with that”. I had to ask “Who can help?” before it gave a link to the help line. It did not offer to send a message on my behalf to the human based support centre. It of course does have access to all my data: my email address, my mobile number, my smart shopper card, my orders so it could send a detailed message on my behalf.

It doesn’t seem to remember long conversations. Also once I closed the app, the entire conversation is lost so there is no history. Had I ordered the ingredients for Paella, I would have had to ask for the recipe and cooking instructions again.

What I like:
– It is a true AI system. Even if I make a spelling mistake it tries to get the right answer, just like ChatGPT, or Gemini (on which it is based).
– It will be used by Pick n Pay shoppers, especially me.
– It has a good interface to the ordering system allowing me to press Add to cart
– Multi-language and voice operation

What I did not like:
– There is no facilty to pass my message onto a human. I have to email or phone with the same request. An interface to send an email is pretty much compulsory for a good AI system in a business and is easily implemented
– Lost history
– Potentially lack of monitoring these conversations to improve the training and answers given by the AI system.

Conclusion:
It’s getting there. If they listen to customers it can be vastly and quickly improved.
If this can be sorted out it will give AI a far better reputation because it is doing something useful
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