Customer Case Study: preezie’s AI Journey with Microsoft Semantic Kernel

Sophia Lagerkrans-Pandey

July 3rd, 20240 1

Today we’re thrilled to feature the preezie team on the Semantic Kernel blog. The preezie team will discuss their AI journey, how they’ve integrated the Semantic Kernel SDK to build out their AI solutions and advice they’d give to other customers getting started on their AI journeys. We’ve broken each question for the preezie team into short interview clips below. Let’s dive into the questions we have for the preezie team!

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1.) Can you introduce yourself and your role?

The below video series will feature the following individuals:

  • Michael Tutek, Founder and CEO, preezie
  • Danny Wang, Head of Technology, preezie
  • Brandon McLean, Development Lead, preezie
  • Danilo Santos da Silva, Senior Software Developer, preezie
  • Vic Perdana, ISV AppDev Architect, Microsoft

2.) What has your AI journey been like in general?

preezie’s journey into AI started through a collaboration opportunity with Microsoft. Michael Tutek, highlighted that their engagement began when preezie was invited to the Retail Research Hub in Sydney, where they were captivated by AI and technological advancements being integrated into retail. This encounter spurred Prezi to adopt elements of Generative AI technology, supported by Microsoft’s robust technical and commercial resources. The partnership has advanced as Prezi’s Head of Technology, Danny Wang, spearheaded their exploration into AI about a year ago, when they visited the Microsoft Retail Research Center. Danny also noted how fast AI has evolved in the past year. preezie’s involvement with AI continued by attending Microsoft Build Australia, where they learned more about Copilot and its possibilities.

3.) What’s the current AI project you’re working on at preezie where you’re using Semantic Kernel?

preezie’s vision for AI is to create a next generation shopping assistant while utilizing Microsoft. They are building out a shopping assistant that aims to bridge the gap between in-store and online shopping by recommending products, answering customer questions, providing advice and providing sizing recommendations to enhance online shopping and provide an experience traditionally found in physical stores.

4.) How has Semantic Kernel helped you with this project and what has implementation looked like?

Danny Wang highlighted that Semantic Kernel has been instrumental and helped preezie keep up with all of the new AI models and practices. Semantic Kernel ensures that their project remains up to date with the latest advancements in AI technology. They’ve also found tremendous value from the development community and getting responds promptly to queries posted on platforms like GitHub, providing valuable feedback and enhancing their development process. Danilo Santos da Silva highlighted how Semantic Kernel has simplified the development process and allowed the team to write minimal code to obtain results. Semantic Kernel has simplified the complexity of connecting to AI Models, plugins and agents.

5.) Were there any major challenges or obstacles you faced during the integration? How did you overcome them?

The preezie team highlighted the complexity of AI and how fast it’s changed as they’ve looked to implement it within their organization. Danny Wang highlighted the lack of knowledge in the beginning and how the team’s assumptions about AI didn’t align with the application of it as this was a solution the team had never worked on before. The constant evolution of models being released made it difficult to keep up. The team faces the daunting task of adapting their processes and codebases to stay current. This necessitates a flexible approach where previous solutions might become obsolete or need substantial modification. Danilo Santos da Silva highlighted timeboxing his experimental time to download new project and see if he could get it working to implement in their project. Brandon McLean highlighted how Semantic Kernel was the solution to the knowledge gap as it provided a framework to drop in and only provide a few inputs to get responses back and prompts working and was great to dive into.

6.) What’s your advice to other businesses embarking on their AI journey based on your learnings?

Brandon McLean highlights staying on top of AI learnings as it’s a hot topic, with Microsoft offering excellent tutorials and examples that facilitate getting started. Danilo Santos da Silva highlighted how he was skeptical at first but quickly realized AI’s capability to handle complexity and deliver results efficiently was limited compared to often traditional programming methods. Vic Perdana recommended to start small with experimenting and understand use cases of AI that are applicable to you and then you can implement it for your business.

For more information about preezie, visit the following links below:

From the Semantic Kernel team, we want to thank the entire preezie team for their time. We’re always interested in hearing from you. If you have feedback, questions or want to discuss further, feel free to reach out to us and the community on the Semantic Kernel GitHub Discussion Channel! We would also love your support, if you’ve enjoyed using Semantic Kernel, give us a star on GitHub.

Thanks again to the preezie team for their amazing work and partnership!

Sophia Lagerkrans-Pandey

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