Square Embraces Generative AI to Enhance Customer Experience
Square, the leading financial services platform, is making significant strides in incorporating generative AI into its offerings. Earlier this year, the company announced plans to integrate AI features aimed at boosting retail sales. Today, it unveiled an impressive array of 10 generative AI capabilities tailored for customer content creation, onboarding, and setup.
These features are available now, though some are in a beta phase. This strategic move appears to be an effort by Square and its parent company, Block, to revitalize the Square platform after facing a challenging year. Block's Cash App has experienced a sharp decline in revenues, and the buy now, pay later service Afterpay, acquired for $29 billion in 2021, has reported significant losses. Additionally, Block has seen its Bitcoin revenue dwindling in tandem with the cryptocurrency's price drop last year. Meanwhile, Square faces fierce competition from platforms like Fiserv’s Clover, Toast, and Stripe. As a result, investors have expressed their discontent, leading to a nearly 30% drop in Square's stock in 2023, coinciding with Jack Dorsey’s reappointment as CEO.
To appease shareholders, Square is rolling out innovative generative AI features.
One standout feature, Menu Generator, promises to help restaurants craft a complete menu on Square in just minutes. According to a Square spokesperson, "This tool is particularly beneficial for new restaurant owners who may not have a menu ready during the onboarding process. With Menu Generator, they can create a full menu and later modify it as they finalize other setup tasks. This offers a crucial momentum for businesses expanding into food and beverage."
While the potential of generative AI is enticing, caution is warranted. There’s a risk that inaccurately generated menus could lead to legal issues for restaurants due to false advertising claims. Square reassures users that the process isn’t fully automated; it leverages various third-party generative AI models, including OpenAI’s GPT-3, GPT-3.5, and GPT-4, to generate suggestions which customers can review and edit before publication.
“Our AI-generated content serves as suggestions for sellers. They have the freedom to accept, modify, or reject the content,” said the spokesperson. The human review aspect is also integral to Square's new generative email feature, which crafts personalized messages for customers, and its website copy generator, capable of drafting headlines and complete blog posts from simple prompts.
I inquired about measures to avoid penalties from search engines for potential duplicate content produced by the website tool. The spokesperson highlighted Square’s partnerships and integrations with Google aimed at enhancing the discoverability of small businesses, but did not directly address the concern.
In addition to generative capabilities, Square has revamped several functionalities within its systems. The point-of-sale platform can now auto-generate item descriptions, which Square claims will save sellers time—though skepticism remains given mixed feedback from similar tools. “Item descriptions are generated based on seller inputs, such as keywords, ensuring relevance while adhering to specified guidelines,” the spokesperson explained.
Further AI enhancements include the Kitchen Display System, which now auto-assigns menu items to kitchen categories, and the Appointments scheduling system, which imports service data during onboarding. Square’s POS system also provides item suggestions based on business insights, though specific details were lacking.
Other AI advancements include Square Team Communication, which can send announcements about new products and promotions, and Square Messages, which offers AI-generated responses that can automatically personalize customer interactions. This upgrade improves upon the system's existing message generation capabilities, which currently produces around 450,000 messages monthly.
In a statement, Saumil Mehta, Square's head of point of sale, remarked that these generative AI features position Square as a leader in technology innovation. “Square is uniquely poised to be the technology partner that facilitates the most seamless applications of AI,” Mehta stated.
While I remain cautiously optimistic about the practical impact of these developments, the extensive scope of today’s launch certainly reflects Square’s ambitious approach to enhance its platform through AI.
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