WiliBot enables natural-language conversations with IoT-connected products, enabling unprecedented insights into asset journey and condition.
SAN DIEGO, August 2024 – Wiliot, a leader in the ambient Internet of Things (IoT), has announced the launch of WiliBot, a generative AI chatbot designed to revolutionize the way businesses interact with their supply chains. WiliBot is a first-of-its-kind tool that enables natural-language conversations with any IoT-connected product, providing companies—and eventually consumers—with unprecedented insights into the journey and condition of the items they manufacture, distribute, and purchase.
WiliBot: a New Era of Supply Chain Interaction
WiliBot marks a significant step forward in how companies manage and understand their supply chains. By leveraging the power of generative AI, WiliBot allows businesses to “talk” to their products and obtain real-time answers to critical questions. For example, a company can ask, “What’s the shelf life of this product?” or “How did it get to the store?” and receive immediate, data-driven responses. WiliBot can also address more complex inquiries such as “What is the carbon footprint of this product, and why is it so high?”
“Ambient IoT and generative AI are increasingly symbiotic technologies,” explained Wiliot CEO Tal Tamir. “Ambient IoT generates vast amounts of data about trillions of everyday things, and GenAI can uniquely make sense of all that data. On the flipside, GenAI learns by analyzing vast amounts of data. To a real extent, that data has so far been finite, but ambient IoT presents massive new physical world datasets that a GenAI platform like WiliBot—and others—can use to describe products, materials, supply chains, and everything connected to the internet.”
Harnessing the Power of IoT and AI
Wiliot’s Ambient Data Platform, which powers WiliBot, uses stamp-sized, self-powered IoT Pixels. These tiny devices, attached to products and packaging, communicate crucial information—such as location, temperature, and humidity—via Bluetooth to the Wiliot cloud. From there, businesses can analyze the data to optimize their operations, responding to real-time alerts about issues like unsafe handling conditions for perishable goods or pharmaceuticals.
While WiliBot is a new development, Wiliot has a strong track record in AI and machine learning. The company’s technology has been pivotal in enabling businesses to gain actionable insights from ambient IoT data, improving supply chain efficiency and product safety. “As more companies have begun rolling out Wiliot’s Ambient Data Platform, we’ve been asked how GenAI capabilities might make the transformation even easier,” Tamir noted. “Our answer is WiliBot, the real-world combination of ambient IoT and AI.”
Pilot Programs and Future Expansion
Wiliot will begin piloting WiliBot with select enterprise customers immediately, with a broader rollout expected in late 2024 and into 2025. During the pilot phase, businesses will use WiliBot to query their IoT-enabled products and supply chains, unlocking new levels of operational efficiency and insight.
Looking ahead, Wiliot envisions extending WiliBot’s capabilities to consumers. In the near future, shoppers will be able to use mobile apps to interact with products in-store and at home, asking questions about carbon footprint, materials composition, and ethical sourcing. This consumer-facing application of WiliBot could transform how people make purchasing decisions, leading to more informed and sustainable choices.
“Wiliot’s Ambient Data Platform already allows companies to gain unprecedented intelligence about trillions of products,” Tamir said. “Now more businesses—and in the future consumers—will be able to ask about and easily understand everything about those products. With WiliBot, we’re answering the question, ‘What if your products could talk?’ Now they can, in natural language, thanks to WiliBot.”
Bringing AI to Supply Chain Management
WiliBot is built on top of a leading large language model (LLM) and integrates the capabilities of ambient IoT with generative AI, creating a powerful tool for supply chain visibility. The linkage between these technologies has already shown promising results, particularly in recent projects with major food retailers. Wiliot’s platform helped reveal that roughly 5% of goods in the food supply chain are lost, damaged, or spoiled before reaching store shelves—a problem Wiliot’s technology addresses by solving two-thirds of these issues. Wiliot’s platform helped reveal that roughly 5% of goods in the food supply chain are lost, damaged, or spoiled before reaching store shelves—a problem Wiliot’s technology addresses by solving two-thirds of these issues. Businesses seeking to build custom interfaces for accessing WiliBot’s data can collaborate with a mobile app development company to create tailored, user-friendly solutions for supply chain visibility.
WiliBot’s introduction will democratize access to these insights, allowing companies of all sizes to benefit from enhanced supply chain management and ultimately, better product quality and safety.
Wiliot plans to showcase WiliBot and its Ambient Data Platform at the MWC Las Vegas 2024 event from October 8-10. Attendees can visit West Hall Booth 910 to see WiliBot in action and learn more about the convergence of ambient IoT and AI during Wiliot’s session titled “5G Advanced Release 19: Transforming Industries with Ambient IoT and AI” on October 9.
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Rick LeBlanc, EMBA, is the founder and editor of Reusable Packaging News (subscribe to the free newsletter) and editor of Western Pallet Magazine. A supply chain journalist with more than 30 years of experience, he specializes in pallets, reusable packaging, material handling and related operations. Rick is co-author of Pallets: A North American Perspective and Pallets & Progress: A Collected History of Pallets and Palletized Handling 1922–1945. He is also an advisory board member of the Virginia Tech Center for Packaging and Unit Load Design. Read Rick’s full bio.
