How far would you go to pamper your pet dog? Would you go as far as letting it do its own online shopping if it could? Well, if your answer is yes, then you will be delighted that you can actually do that (let fido does the shopping). But the caveat is, it is only happening in Brazil. Petz, a chain of pet shops in Brazil, has launched an e-commerce website, aptly called Pet-Commerce, that will let your furry friend “choose” the products that interest him/her.
There’s no need to handover your precious MacBook or whatever laptop you are using to your dog, so there’s no need to worry about fido gets its paws allover the machine and you have artificial intelligence and (dog) facial recognition to thank. The operation is fairly simple. You will need to have a web-connected device with a webcam so that Pet-Commerce can decipher reaction to a range of products you show them to it.
Each product is accompanied by a video of the product presented exclusively in yellow and blue. Apparently, dogs can see those colors better. And yeah, in contrary to age-old believe, dogs don’t see in black and white. They can actually see colors, or at least some of the colors. Anywho, through the webcam, the system on Pet-Commerce analyzes the pet’s face and its head movement to determine what are the items that it has interest in.
The system will then rate the each product on a scale of one to five bones, as well as using colors to identify products that the dog is and isn’t interested. Red being not interested while green would be interested. Armed with this information, pet owners will be able to make a more accurate buying decision and therefore minimize the odds of buying something their dogs don’t like.
Btw, that’s not a joke. Pet-Commerce is a thing in Brazil. I know right. It sounds absolutely bonkers, but hey, if AI can help to buy something your furry friend actually love, nothing is too crazy. Right now, the system is tailored for canines only, but Petz said they may develop one for cats too. Though no timeline was given. Here’s the video demo if you are interested:
Images: YouTube (Ogilvy Brazil).
Source: ADWEEK.
