Voice is the next interface for commerce: Meesho CTO Sanjeev Kumar

E-commerce firm Meesho believes that its newly launched conversational voice shopping assistant, 'Vaani- Your Meesho Dost,' can reduce returns and cancellations. The platform's co-founder and CTO, Sanjeev Kumar, on Tuesday said that early signals from the launch showed that 1.5 million users have already used it and that there is 22 per cent improvement in conversion.

"Voice is the next interface for commerce, and we are building the voice layer for the next 500 million users," Sanjeev Kumar said.

“Over the years, we have embedded AI and ML across every part of our marketplace, from discovery and pricing to logistics, trust and seller growth. Vaani is a natural extension of this journey," he added.

The assistant understands user intent, asks follow-up questions, surfaces relevant products, and guides users through key steps in the purchase journey.

Meesho plans to launch this in many Indian languages.

Kumar further said that the e-commerce interface hasn't evolved over the last two decades. “If you look at e-commerce today, it's a list of either images or videos, and that has stayed the same for the last two decades,” he said.

For the next 500 million people, this interface is a big limitation, as it was built for English, and for people who are more used to typing, he added.

Conversational AI voice agents are not new, as ecommerce platforms have been trying to use them to support customers and make voice-based shopping easier.

According to Grand View Research, the global voice commerce market size was estimated at $42.75 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach $186.28 billion by 2030. It pointed out that voice commerce is becoming an integral part of the ecommerce ecosystem.