Lotte Launches Pilot Version of Retail AI Speaker 'Charlotte Home'... Optimization Process

A scene of checking cooking recipes at home through Charlotte Home. Photo by Lotte Shopping

[Asia Economy Reporter Minyoung Cha] In the era of voice commerce, Lotte Shopping is diversifying its content.

On the 5th, Lotte Shopping introduced the AI speaker ‘Charlotte Home’ to the families of its employees and VIP customers. This aims to identify inconveniences and improve the service through an optimization process by facing actual consumers in a testbed market.

Charlotte Home originated from the desire to actively utilize Lotte Shopping’s offline competitiveness online through data integration. It is expected to be one way to enhance competitiveness in the e-commerce dimension.

Prepared to respond to the commerce paradigm shifting ‘from touch to voice,’ Charlotte Home features a slightly different form from general AI speakers by incorporating a ‘display function.’ Although similar to Amazon’s ‘Echo Show’ or SKT’s ‘Nugu Nemo,’ which have visible screens attached to AI speakers, it is the first to be introduced in the domestic distribution industry.

Charlotte Home, equipped with a touch screen, also considers mobility with a 6000mAh battery. After charging, it can be used anywhere with Wi-Fi, even in places without power, such as bedrooms and kitchens. Another strength is the inclusion of a woofer speaker for music listening.

Currently, Charlotte Home allows ordering and using all products and services sold by Lotte Department Store, Lotte Super, Lotte Home Shopping, and Lotteria. Since the touch screen and voice speaker operate simultaneously, it has a comparative advantage in accuracy over other devices. As early as the first half of the year, a Lotte Cinema reservation function is also expected to be added.

Additionally, content from startups born purely from domestic technology has been incorporated. For example, cooking recipes provided by EasyHLD, educational news from Forward Future, and a video call service developed by Linear Hub will also be available. Charlotte Home has formed technology partnerships with a total of 18 domestic startup companies in the spirit of co-growth with small and medium enterprises. All content such as weather, YouTube, podcasts, schedule management, alarms, memos, and dictionaries can be used through Charlotte Home’s voice interface and screen.

The greatest competitiveness of Lotte’s voice platform lies in its continuously expandable content. Smart and convenient functions such as shopping, weather checking, memo, and schedule management are expected to continue increasing in the future.

Lotte Shopping expects this speaker, roughly the size of two palms pressed together, to serve as a stepping stone for the digital transformation (DT) innovation occurring throughout the Lotte Group.

Meanwhile, Lotte Shopping is preparing to launch ‘LotteON,’ a mobile shopping app that will gather various products from Lotte Group affiliates in one place, in the first half of this year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.