Kalpana Ravi
Mumbai: Founded in April 2016, AnyMind Group [TSE:5027] is a BPaaS (Business-Process-as-a-Service) company for marketing, e-commerce and digital transformation that provides software and solutions for end-to-end commerce enablement.
The company provides two broad offerings to brands and businesses, publishers, and influencers: Brand Commerce and Partner Growth. Brand Commerce provides businesses with the company’s platforms for manufacturing, e-commerce enablement, marketing, and logistics, whilst Partner Growth provides web and mobile app publishers along with influencers and content creators with platforms for monetization and optimization. Partner Growth customers can also tap on the company’s Brand Commerce offering.
The company entered India in 2020 with the acquisition of POKKT, a leading India-founded mobile
advertising platform. POKKT provides a one-stop solution for in-app and web advertising and caters to top global brands across verticals, helping the company achieve a vast spectrum of marketing objectives. It offers native ads, rich media interactive ads, rewarded video ads etc.; having expertise in both brand and performance marketing within gaming, and non-gaming app and web inventory that spans globally.
The company then rolled out various platforms in India, including an influencer marketing platform AnyTag, one of the leading influencer marketing platforms in Asia Pacific, providing end-to-end functionalities to discover influencers, and activate, manage, track and attribute influencer marketing campaigns to business results, including sales conversions and install attribution from influencer marketing activities.
The company also subsequently launched in India its e-commerce data and management platform AnyX, e-commerce enablement solution AnyShop, publisher growth and monetization platform AnyManager, creator growth and management platform AnyCreator, and digital marketing platform AnyDigital.
Business-Process-as-a-Service (BPaaS) is a business model that merges and creates an additional
layer of value on top of Software-as-a-Service or SaaS (software-centric) and Business Process Outsourcing or BPO (operations-centric), by providing greater flexibility and scalability to the entire business process lifecycle. Through BPaaS, enterprises can tap into agile and adaptive end-to-end process lifecycle management through a combination of technology and operations teams that leverage on local and regional best practices, for the designing, development, implementation, optimization, and automation across the business process.
Aditya co-leads the company’s business lines for India and MENA regions for AnyMind Group, including its Brand Commerce and Partner Growth segments. He also leads the company’s Growth Markets unit. He joined AnyMind Group through the acquisition of POKKT Mobile Ads, a leading mobile marketing platform. Aditya has over two decades of experience, including the ad tech, broadcast and publishing industries. Before joining AnyMind Group and POKKT, Aditya helmed leadership positions in Culture Machine Media, Astro Malaysia, Bloomberg TV and Turner Broadcasting System.
MadeInMedia.in’s Kalpana Ravi in an email interaction with Aditya Aima, Managing Director, Growth Markets, AnyMind Group, on the companies GenAI powered live commerce platform and much more….
Can you provide more insights into AnyMind Group’s newly launched GenAI-powered live commerce platform, AnyLive?
Our latest launch, AnyLive is a GenAI-powered tool that enhances live commerce by complementing human hosts with AI avatars that look and feel like humans, respond to comments and questions in real-time, and deliver live streams across multiple platforms in various languages.
AnyLive was developed to make 24/7 live commerce possible, providing brands with an always-on sales channel that is able to explain products, interact with customers and drive purchases. The platform leverages large-language models to generate live-stream scripts based on product details and real-time, automated responses in a live-stream. AnyLive integrates seamlessly with major e-commerce and social media platforms, including Amazon, Shopee, Lazada, AliExpress, TikTok Shop, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and X, allowing brands to reach a wider audience through simultaneous broadcasts across multiple platforms.
In a test done for Evian (AI influencer) in Thailand over nine weeks saw a 90% decrease in live commerce costs and a 3.5X uplift in sales. In this test, human hosts fronted live streams for 45 hours (during peak viewership periods), whilst the AI avatar took over for 820 hours.
What global factors are driving the growth of live commerce, and how is this trend evolving in India?
Live Commerce is not a brand-new concept. It’s similar to infomercials or a salesperson doing an in-person demo of a product to a live audience – just that this time it’s through a laptop or mobile device, making it even more accessible and in-trend with the new generation of audiences. This has picked up quite fast in counties like Mainland China and various parts of Southeast Asia including Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.
One of the biggest factors that pushes live commerce is the high consumption of social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and Facebook and they too adding live commerce features.
The tipping point in Southeast Asia was when TikTok Shop started diving more into live commerce, and other e-commerce platforms such as Shopee and Lazada started following.
In India, the trend is slowly picking up and will become mainstream over the next coming years.
How are Indian consumers embracing live commerce, and are brands in the region adopting it quickly enough?
Although, yet in early days, live commerce is starting to take shape. What we have noticed in various parts of Asia is that every day platforms, such as social media and e-commerce platforms, launch features that support live commerce, and this has led to a faster adoption and shift in behavioral trends. For example in Southeast Asia, platforms like Shopee and Lazada in Southeast Asia – which are traditionally e-commerce platforms, have ridden on consumer shifts driven by TikTok’s TikTok Shop, and are also sporting their own live commerce features.
Another way live commerce has risen is through cross-border commerce. A foreigner living in, for example, South Korea, is able to procure products locally (most notably in the fashion space) and sell them to a live audience overseas. This live stream is done in their own local language, providing overseas audiences with language and logistics accessibility that was previously unfilled.
At present, brands that move first in India can get an edge – building up a following, establishing best practices and ensuring they have the most efficient processes to excel on live commerce.
What strategies can brands use to balance the use of AI avatars and human live-stream hosts in live commerce?
Brands can first start by using humans to helm live streams during peak hours, and then later an AI avatar can take over for the rest of the duration. Consumers can still have a human touch in any live chat, that AI or any new-age technology still cannot replicate – bringing a touch of emotional connection which works well.
Also, it’s important to do A/B testing over a period of time to find the best ratio of human and AI hosts. At times, a 10:90 (human to AI) ratio works best, in other cases, a 20:80 ratio works better for the brand or products. This can also differ during certain periods such as sales days and festive seasons.
In what ways can AI avatars enhance customer engagement and drive sales during live commerce events?
AI avatars essentially automate the live commerce process, and this includes script and response generation, delivering content in various languages, and can fit a brand’s requirements and stream without any physical limitations. This means that during live commerce events, AI avatars are able to host live streams during unusual hours (where humans require rest) such as between 2am to 6am, and are not limited by geographical boundaries.
Has AnyMind Group conducted live streams featuring AI avatars? What resources and setups are required for a successful AI avatar-driven live stream?
Yes, our case study running an AI avatar-fronted livestream for Evian in Thailand is a perfect example of this.
The resources and setups include:
● Preparation
○ Selecting products/brands to feature
○ Obtaining whitelists from live commerce platforms
○ A talent to capture visuals and voice overs
○ Setups needed
■ Capturing talent likeness
● Camera
● Lighting
● Shooting monitor
● Green screen
● Microphone
● Running the live stream
○ A device with a good CPU, graphics card, SSD and RAM
○ A place to host the device during live streams
○ Stable internet connection
Which industries or sectors in India are leading the adoption of AI-powered live-streaming solutions?
In India, we are still in early stages. Elsewhere in Asia, we’re seeing AI-powered live commerce pick up particularly in industries such as FMCG and cosmetics.
How can brands leverage live streaming to design innovative and scalable campaigns, and what ROI can they expect?
Going back to our case study with Evian, we saw an uplift of product sales by 3.5X (with the use of AI avatars) compared to before the use of AI avatars. The reason why is that AI avatars provide a 24/7 sales channel, enabling Evian to capture opportunities that were previously untapped through the use of human hosts (for example, streaming during off-peak hours and receiving sales during those periods).
Brands that will be quick to adapt live streaming and AI avatars will have an advantage, as this brings in a “Wow Factor” and also helps in brand recall.
How has AnyMind Group utilized generative AI across regions, and what impact is it having on marketing trends?
Yes, we have incorporated generative AI at AnyMind. Earlier this year, we launched GenAI search functionality on AnyTag, where users can receive accurate suggestions of influencers based on a concept that they have in mind. The inputs can come in the form of simply uploading an image of what they picture or telling the chat assistant to find influencers of a certain demographic. The aim of this functionality is time-saving, as users don’t have to manually sift through thousands of influencers based on a vague concept that they envision.
We have also released campaign brief generator (on AnyTag) and social media post copy generator (on AnyCreator) to bridge gaps between brands creating attractive campaign briefs for influencers, and for influencers to create copy that fits a brand’s guidelines.
Another type of GenAI feature that we typically implement is targeted for cost savings and expansion of business or monetization opportunities. Two implementations immediately come to mind – the first is automated generation of short-form video content for publishers on our AnyManager platform, where users simply input an article URL and receive a short-form video that can be used on social media channels or on their website, expanding monetization means.
Ultimately, we are just scratching the surface of the implementation of GenAI on our platforms, and are starting to see a more receptive market across regions to the usage of GenAI functionality to run better marketing and to reach wider audiences.
How do platforms like AnyMind enable brands to seamlessly integrate live commerce into their marketing strategies?
At AnyMind Group, we equip our customers with an arsenal of tools across their business supply chain. We call this to a Business-Process-as-a-Service offering, where customers can plug and play tools that they need. For example, a customer can work with us for our e-commerce suite (e-commerce management, customer management and logistics management tools), which facilitates their digital commerce chain.
Enabling live commerce then becomes a matter of providing upside to this existing digital commerce chain, bringing additional value and a new sales channel for our customers.
What role can generative AI play in transforming the influencer marketing landscape in India?
We are already equipping marketers with the ability to make better decisions when it comes to influencer selection, crafting campaign briefs to get influencers to join a campaign, and enabling influencers to develop copy that resonates with their audience and a brand’s requirements.
There are endless possibilities in this space, but ultimately platforms have to consider the type of value that they want to equip their users with, instead of developing GenAI functionality just because it’s trending.