A groundbreaking technology led by a team of ex-CERN physicists and neuroscientists has major designs on detecting and interpreting human emotions using AI and radio waves without personally identifiable information. And retailers could be lining up to use it.
Wayvee Analytics Chief Product Officer Alex Ovcharov heads a team that is using a combination of FMCW radar and AI algorithms to analyze physiological responses such as heart rate, breathing and micro-movements through radio signals. The resulting AI algorithm analyzes responses through a trained neural network to evaluate customers’ emotional states and convert them into C-SAT scores.
“The general idea is, after studying the human brain, it was determined that most of our decisions are made subconsciously, and often in stores it is in front of the shelf,” Ovcharov said in an interview. “Subconsciously, the biggest driver is the price and value of the product.”
Retailers have traditionally gauged customer satisfaction through rewards cards that itemize purchases by the card holder’s name and via cameras. Consumers are often tempted and swayed by in retail environments by product displays, signage, colors, and lighting. Retailers, in essence, try to also create an emotional connection with shoppers to establish brand loyalty.
Wayvee, by contrast, provides shop owners with comprehensive real-time insights — without revealing the name of the customer — that can be uploaded into their business’ web-based dashboard.
The technology can identify happiness, anger, frustration and other emotions with 80% accuracy, while maintaining full anonymity of the data. The privacy-first approach represents a significant shift from current emotion-recognition methods, which often rely on cameras or microphones.
Wayvee’s innovation could have broad appeal among retailers to assess customer sentiment, health care providers monitoring patient well-being, and smart homes adjusting lighting or entertainment based on emotional states.
Wayvee Analytics is working with Lenskart, an Indian eyewear e-commerce company. The company is leaning on a sensor, not a camera, for a better understanding of why shoppers buy products, rather than who they are.
“If happy and uplifted, you are more likely to buy products,” Ovcharov said, pointing to a scientific study in the 1990s with the smell of, yes, cinnamon buns. The pleasant fragrance influenced people twice as much at a mall to give a stranger change for a $100 bill. (Nike Inc., similarly, uses a new shoe scent to draw shoppers, he said.)
Conversely, anger suppresses sales, and it often can be traced to a contextual reaction, according to Ovcharov. He mentioned a Wayvee case study at a premium sneaker store, where would-be buyers left when confronted with too many other shoppers. “Speed of service correlates with customer satisfaction,” he said.
