WEBVTT - 1-800-Flowers.com's McCann on Using AI to Place Orders (Audio)

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<v Speaker 1>Global business news twenty four hours a day at Bloomberg

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<v Speaker 1>on Katherine Cowdery. The stock market staged an afternoon come

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<v Speaker 1>down nine thirty second is with the yield of one

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<v Speaker 1>point seven seven And that's a Bloomberg business flash. You're

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<v Speaker 1>listening to taking stock box on Bloomberg Radio. Mother's Day. Yes,

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<v Speaker 1>Mother's Day is a big day in the flower industry.

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<v Speaker 1>So here to tell us more about it is Jim McCann.

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<v Speaker 1>He is the founder and the chief executive of one

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<v Speaker 1>eight hundred flowers dot com. And you're based on Long Island.

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<v Speaker 1>And I'm surprised, Jim that you could even have the

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<v Speaker 1>time to come into the studio, but thank you very much.

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<v Speaker 1>I thought you'd be cutting the flowers and wrapping the plants.

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<v Speaker 1>I'll be back at it. Tune all right, tell us

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<v Speaker 1>just give us the volume. A business that you're going

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<v Speaker 1>to do over the next two to three days. Well,

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<v Speaker 1>this week we'll do well over a million gifts for

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<v Speaker 1>moms all over the country, in fact, all over the world.

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<v Speaker 1>So it's a it's a busy time. Five point four

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<v Speaker 1>million roses, one hundred and fifty thousand plants, all delivered

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<v Speaker 1>in time, all but one on time. Yes, that's that's

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<v Speaker 1>the intent. To get them all there in time takes

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<v Speaker 1>a lot of orchestration, pen to get all of that

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<v Speaker 1>staging done the greenhouses all over the country with the plans,

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<v Speaker 1>see the delivery people. The technology helps that get to

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<v Speaker 1>be a little easier task each year, but it's still

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<v Speaker 1>a daunting task, all right. So I'm glad you mentioned

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<v Speaker 1>technology because that provides me with an opportunity to ask

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<v Speaker 1>you about a couple of new initiatives Facebook, for example.

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<v Speaker 1>Tell me what you're doing with Facebook. Well, I'm very

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<v Speaker 1>proud of the team uh Pen. We've announced over the

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<v Speaker 1>last few months three things in technology. On the app side,

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<v Speaker 1>so we've had apps for a long long time, but

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<v Speaker 1>we just did the next round refreshes on the iOS app,

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<v Speaker 1>on the Android app, and on the Windows ten apps,

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<v Speaker 1>so those are all redone in the last few months.

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<v Speaker 1>And then we had three announcements of new technologies over

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<v Speaker 1>the last three weeks. The first is the one you

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<v Speaker 1>mentioned Facebook. Facebook has uh in the messenger service has

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<v Speaker 1>now has bots, which everyone says is going to be

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<v Speaker 1>the replacement for apps. The new trend and how we

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<v Speaker 1>interact with learning and intelligent machines, and now you can

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<v Speaker 1>order through Messenger without ever having to touch anything or

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<v Speaker 1>pick up the phone verbally, you can order something from us,

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<v Speaker 1>and we were tickled. My brother Chris, as you know,

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<v Speaker 1>runs the company and he was there with his team

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<v Speaker 1>in in San Francisco when Mark Zuckerberg was on stage

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<v Speaker 1>and he chose to demonstrate how this new bot technology

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<v Speaker 1>which is hanging awful lot on the first thing he

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<v Speaker 1>demonstrated that you could do. He said, you know how

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<v Speaker 1>easy it was to call one anger flowers. Now you

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<v Speaker 1>don't even have to do that. You can order through

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<v Speaker 1>the messenger bot. So that was a huge deal for

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<v Speaker 1>us a couple of weeks ago, and then last week,

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<v Speaker 1>week before last week announced all partnership with Amazon. Amazon

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<v Speaker 1>has got this unbelievable new platform of technology where you'll

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<v Speaker 1>have a little tower standing on your on your accounter,

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<v Speaker 1>in your kitchen. It's called the Alexa. Right, Alexa is

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<v Speaker 1>the personality of the voice in that the in that system.

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<v Speaker 1>And now you can instead of saying, hey, I'd like

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<v Speaker 1>to listen to pin box on blue Berg and have

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<v Speaker 1>it automatically turned on for you. In addition to that,

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<v Speaker 1>you can say pause phim for a minute because I

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<v Speaker 1>need to send laws to mom for Mother's Day. Again.

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<v Speaker 1>It will go into your roller deex, it will select

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<v Speaker 1>the address you want the product you want, all done verbally,

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<v Speaker 1>and that's that's a big partnership when we've worked on

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<v Speaker 1>a long time and coincidentally came right after the Facebook announcement,

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<v Speaker 1>and then just this week we announced a partnership with

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<v Speaker 1>IBM S Watson and we have our own personality we've

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<v Speaker 1>named Gwen, and gwen sits on top of Watson, which

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<v Speaker 1>is artificial intelligence platform and so now you can order

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<v Speaker 1>through our site through Gwyn. With conversational commerce, you can

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<v Speaker 1>interact with a bot to get all the different kinds

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<v Speaker 1>of recommendations you want and then have it automatically ordered

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<v Speaker 1>for you. So it's been a busy three weeks of

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<v Speaker 1>big time announcements and frankly there's more to come. Take

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<v Speaker 1>the Facebook experience for just a moment, and I'm wondering

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<v Speaker 1>if you could share with other business owners the challenges

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<v Speaker 1>or what they should expect. Is there any anything, any

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<v Speaker 1>guidance or advice that you can offer a business owner

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<v Speaker 1>who's thinking of doing something similar for their industry. Well,

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<v Speaker 1>I think I think the lesson that we've learned would

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<v Speaker 1>probably probably apply to most businesses, especially small businesses, which

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<v Speaker 1>which is where we play. It's not hard to see

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<v Speaker 1>what the next technology revolution is going to be. All

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<v Speaker 1>you have to do is listen to your program, watch

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<v Speaker 1>the Bloomberg TV read Bloomberg Business Week. You see the

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<v Speaker 1>new technologies. And we've been seeing this talk about artificial

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<v Speaker 1>intelligence for quite a while now and then only in

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<v Speaker 1>a recent few months talk about box. Well, it's easy

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<v Speaker 1>to read what they are. So you need to step

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<v Speaker 1>back and say, in a business like ours at One Flowers,

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<v Speaker 1>it's all about convenience. So will any of these technologies

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<v Speaker 1>make it even more convenient for customers make us more

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<v Speaker 1>accessible because at the end of the day, we're in

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<v Speaker 1>the business of helping out customers act on their thoughtfulness,

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<v Speaker 1>all right. So so the idea of being if it

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<v Speaker 1>answers the question will it make the relationship for the

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<v Speaker 1>customer more convenient? If you check the box, yes, you

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<v Speaker 1>should go ahead with this kind of project. But in

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<v Speaker 1>terms of time and money, is it always going is

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<v Speaker 1>it like more than you think the thought that you

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<v Speaker 1>were going to spend or well, it depends on a

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<v Speaker 1>platform you're on. You know what kind of technology you have,

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<v Speaker 1>So sometimes you almost have to look to throw the

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<v Speaker 1>old technology out to leap frog onto the new platform. Fortunately,

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<v Speaker 1>we keep investing in technology. So we were just looking

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<v Speaker 1>talking to a company earlier this week who said, geez,

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<v Speaker 1>we'd like to do that too, and when we looked

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<v Speaker 1>at their technology, they really have the leap frog, so

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<v Speaker 1>it's so expensive for them. So my recognition is to

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<v Speaker 1>stay current, that is, to when everything else has to

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<v Speaker 1>be cut back for one reason or another, keep your

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<v Speaker 1>investment in technology going because you could fall so far

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<v Speaker 1>behind it you really can't catch up. In this convenience world,

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<v Speaker 1>the convenience for the deliver the delivery service, how has

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<v Speaker 1>that changed, Well, I think changing dramatically. You know, we

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<v Speaker 1>have a test we announced a month ago with Uber,

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<v Speaker 1>with the Uber product. We're doing that and bossed in

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<v Speaker 1>today all these last mild delivery things. I was chatting

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<v Speaker 1>with a friend recently who's a local merchant, has a

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<v Speaker 1>dry cleaning business, has a truck, goes around, comes to

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<v Speaker 1>my house twice a week, wants to drop off, wants

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<v Speaker 1>to pick up. It's a wonderful service. But I was

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<v Speaker 1>saying to why don't you do other things? Why don't

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<v Speaker 1>you bring other things to my house? And so we

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<v Speaker 1>got into a conversation. I was happy to hear him

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<v Speaker 1>say yesterday, Hey Jim, we're doing new stuff. I'll tell

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<v Speaker 1>you about it next week. Very good. Thank you very much,

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<v Speaker 1>Jim McCann, founder, chief executive of one eight hundred flowers

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<v Speaker 1>dot com and at others coming up. Bloomberg Law brought

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<v Speaker 1>to you by New Jersey Institute of Technology, investing more

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<v Speaker 1>than a hundred and ten million dollars a year and

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<v Speaker 1>applied research to solve problems and improved life. Learn more

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<v Speaker 1>at Stories of Innovation dot n J I T dot

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<v Speaker 1>E d U