AI Pet Portraits
Surprise and delight customers with AI pet portraits to celebrate special occasions.
context
Chewy is an online retail store for pet owners known for its customer service. It has built a loyal following with the fundamental understanding that pet parents regard their pets as family. By providing exceptional customer care, it shows pet owners that their concerns and needs truly matter.
One of the many ways Chewy shows it cares is through its Pet Portraits program which is socially very successful. It works with artists to create perfect pet portraits for randomly selected customers, who have pet photos on their Chewy account, to surprise & delight them on different occasions like birthdays etc.
the challenge
With growing user base and demand for pet portraits Chewy wanted to make the program scalable leveraging Gen AI directing the traffic into mobile to increase app engagement.
My role
This project was the first AI project that came out of an online workshop I co facilitated to identify opportunities where Gen AI can help improve Chewy’s customer experience. I led the project end to end while closely working with PM and program managers to create design work back plan, get partner resources like content writers, researchers and implement designs with android/ios developers. As I iterated on the designs , I worked closely with different stakeholders like marketing, research, design system and support.
Target user
Chewy has multiple personas based on spend pattern and engagement rates. Given program has high social engagement, we focused on the hyper engaged optimizers, user group who had been very vocal on social about their dissatisfaction with the program to have the maximum impact. For our discussion let’s call this persona Hydie, the hyper engaged optimizer. They are Chewy’s high value customers ($3k spend per year), are socially very active and generally are more open to trying new offerings. We focused on single pet profiles with dogs or cats as they make majority of the accounts.
Research & insights
Worked closely with data analyst and interviewed support to understand existing process, work arounds and customer experience with pet portraits. Did initial discovery with 7 customers to assess customers issues with pet portraits and general concerns with AI.
Unclear eligibility criteria
Customers showed frustration online over unclear process to receive or order a pet portrait. I partnered with data analyst to deep dive into the issue. I figured that customers who contacted support were being sent pet portraits more often compared to others. Customers sent support pet photos over email.
Customers feel out of loop
Customer when creating their account add an ordinary pet photo, unaware that later Chewy could use it to generate a portrait to surprise them. Which results in an average looking pet portrait prompting customers to return or calling in support to request portrait with a different photo.
Skeptical customers towards AI
Chewy has a wide customer base. Though its customers were aware of what AI is they were skeptical about it and had concerns about how the AI Pet portrait process would work, privacy of their photos and data usage.
AI Image Modle and its constraints
As I kicked off the project I learnt it was already decided that Lensa image model will be used considering costs and ease with API integrations. Lensa already had AI Avatars for people and through Chewy partnership wanted to get into pet avatar creation as well. Customer needed to upload 10-20 photos of their pet. It was super important that these uploaded photos met certain requirements to create desired great quality output. The model could provide100 stylized portraits of the pet within 30 minutes.
redefined Goal
Allow pet owners to easily turn ordinary pet photos into cherished AI enhanced high quality keepsakes
Metrics
Efficiency
Savings
Engagement
UX Principles
Separate out AI features from rest
Transparency around data usage and workflow
All features to work cohesively in the Chewy eco system providing personalized human touch
How might we help hydie upload photos that will generate high quality AI Pet portraits
Throughout the project our mantra was "Clear, intuitive, user friendly setup". We used the Laws of Simplicity to first minimizing the actual complexity followed by reducing the perceived complexity. Since small and mid sized companies being majority of our user group, we made relevant use-cases most prominent and hid the rarely used tasks so that they are available only on demand.
Multiple design iterations to explore possible solutions.
How might we Keep Hydie engaged and informed during long generation times to create an overall positive experience
Once the customer finishes his setup he will land on the sales transactions page. Initially there won't be any transactions to be displayed and he will be presented with a blank slate that will help him explore the available functionalities and take the first few steps. If in case he has not set up PayPal for expenses and bank transactions he is given an entry point to the flow.
Update component library with AI components
How might we Provide Hydie branded unique results so experience feels personalized and exclusive to Chewy
Logo> Text overlay>File name
Training AI with Chewy’s color palette and theme for holiday campaigns for exclusive experience and delight/surprise customers
Beta testing and findings
32 participants for Beta testing before the release scheduled after Thanksgiving.
Learnings:
Inconsistent results
Error cases.
Very lengthy, doesnt leverage the account photo
Doesnt evoke the same level of delight
Next steps
Letting customer rate output allowing system to improve and evolve.
Let customers thank artists without disclosing their names
With 1 photo screen, banner to add element of surprise
Support more usecases: multi pet scenarios, For other pets, acquire new customers and increase app downloads.
Vision, Evangelize AI principles,
What would I do Differently
create better work back plan keeping in mind design partner timelines
Explore Agentic AI to automate how Chewy runs campaigns