Russ Maschmeyer: Spatial Commerce and AI in Retail

In episode 109 of The Gradient Podcast, Daniel Bashir (twitter.com/spaniel_bashir) speaks to Russ Maschmeyer (x.com/StrangeNative?s=20).
Russ is the Product Lead for AI and Spatial Commerce at Shopify. At Shopify, he leads a team that looks at how AI can better empower entrepreneurs, with a particular interest in how image generation can help make the lives of business owners and merchants more productive. He previously led design for multiple services at Facebook and co-founded Primer, an AR-enabled interior design marketplace.
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Outline:
* (00:00) Intro
* (01:50) Russ’s background and a hacked Kinect sensor
* (06:00) Instruments and emotion, embodiment and accessibility
* (08:45) Natural language as input and generative AI in creating emotive experiences
* (10:55) Work on search queries and recommendations at Facebook, designing for search
* (16:35) AI in the retail and entrepreneurial landscape
* (19:15) Shopify and AI for business owners
* (22:10) Vision and directions for AI in commerce
* (25:01) Personalized experiences for shopping
* (28:45) Challenges for creating personalized experiences
* (31:49) Intro to spatial commerce
* (34:48) AR/VR devices and spatial commerce
* (37:30) MR and AI for immersive product search
* (41:35) Implementation details
* (48:05) WonkaVision and difficulties for immersive web experiences
* (52:10) Future projects and directions for spatial commerce
* (55:10) Outro
Links:
* Russ’s Twitter (x.com/StrangeNative?s=20) and homepage (russmaschmeyer.com)
* With a Wave of the Hand, Improvising on Kinect (nytimes.com/2011/07/21/technology/personaltech…) in The New York Times
* Shopify Spatial Commerce Projects (shopify.github.io/spatial-commerce-projects)
* MR and AI for immersive product search (shopify.github.io/spatial-commerce-projects/Ma…)
* A more immersive web with a simple optical illusion (shopify.github.io/spatial-commerce-projects/Wo…)
* What if your room had a reset button? (shopify.github.io/spatial-commerce-projects/Sp…)

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