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Demystifying AI & ML: Exploring Their Pricing Software Uses

September 5th, 2023 | 8 min. read

By Sylvain Rougemaille

In the fast-paced and ever-changing business landscape, effective pricing strategies have become paramount for companies seeking a competitive advantage and creating value for their business and customers alike. With the introduction of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) in price optimization, businesses can now tap into valuable insights and uncover previously unimaginable opportunities. Gone are the days of relying on cumbersome Excel spreadsheets for price optimization, especially when dealing with extensive product catalogs. Sit back and enjoy this journey of demystifying AL AI & ML. 

Pricefx is a trusted provider of AI & ML-informed price optimization software for over a decade. With their advanced algorithms and data processing capabilities, they are at the forefront of harnessing technology to unlock business growth and unearth untapped opportunities. The technology offers crystal-clear insights, enabling businesses to optimize prices, segment customers, and create compelling offers. By predicting market changes and understanding customer reactions, companies can align their operations with customer preferences, leverage value-based pricing, and maximize sales and profitability. 

In this comprehensive article, we will analyze the symbiotic relationship between AI and ML in enhancing pricing software. We will also uncover how these technologies work together to drive price optimization, unlock growth insights, and seize business opportunities as we unravel their uses and empower businesses to make data-driven pricing decisions for a prosperous future. 

What is ML?  

AI and ML are often misunderstood with the terms often misconstrued to mean precisely the same thing, but that’s not accurate. 

While the 2 terms may seem like 2 peas in a pod, they hold their own distinct powers.  

In this grand spectacle, machine learning captivates with its ability to learn from data, discern patterns, and make better decisions over time. It’s like a skilled apprentice, constantly honing its craft and growing wiser through experiences.

Consider ML as a building block, a crucial ingredient that breathes life into the magnificent creation we know as AI. ML is the secret sauce that empowers your system to learn and improve automatically, without explicit programming or specific goals in mind. 

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Machine learning is a subset of AI, focusing on the development of programs that possess the extraordinary power to access data and learn from it. These clever programs employ statistical methods to evolve and enhance their skills, without the need for human intervention or guidance. It’s the dawn of a new era, where machines learn, grow, and surpass our wildest expectations.

What is ML in Pricing? 

Now, let’s unveil the remarkable role of machine learning in the realm of pricing software. Here, it takes center stage to craft the predictive model that will fuel the AI’s abilities. Imagine this model as a compass, guiding the AI in constructing the perfect price optimization strategy tailored to your unique set of products and desired business outcomes. 

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In the world of pricing software, machine learning ensures that the AI is armed with the knowledge and foresight to decipher market dynamics, customer behaviors, and future trends. It’s like having a wise sage, whispering secrets of profitability and customer satisfaction. 

While ML algorithms can predict the outcomes of your pricing strategy, they may not provide specific guidance on selecting the ideal price to meet your business objectives.  

However, when aiming to pursue multiple organizational goals concurrently, AI-informed pricing software offers a wealth of additional insights and growth potential that can satisfy your business’s growth ambitions. 

What is AI? 

AI or Artificial intelligence is where technology transcends boundaries to emulate human intelligence.  

AI a computer system that is designed to think the way human intelligence does – and that is what sets AI apart from its ML counterpart.

For example, imagine you’re using an AI-powered voice assistant like Siri on your phone. You decide to put its capabilities to the test and ask it to recommend a great book to read. Here’s where the magic happens.

Powered by advanced AI algorithms, Siri goes beyond simply providing a single book recommendation. It delves into your reading history, analyzes your preferences, and understands your literary tastes. Drawing from a vast library of titles and user reviews, Siri intelligently curates a personalized list of books that align with your interests.

But it doesn’t stop there. Siri takes it a step further by offering insightful reviews, author biographies, and even suggests related genres or similar authors that you might find intriguing. With AI, your quest for the perfect book transcends the ordinary and becomes an extraordinary journey of literary exploration and tailored recommendations.

AI has emerged as a groundbreaking approach to creating computer systems that not only replicate but transcend human abilities. Through AI-enabled programs, data analysis becomes contextualized, providing valuable information and triggering automated actions, all without the need for human intervention. 

Across the globe, companies are harnessing the power of AI techniques like computer vision and natural language processing. These advancements enable tasks to be automated, customer chatbot interactions to be more realistic and engaging, and decision-making processes, including within the pricing industry, to be expedited. 

What is AI in Pricing? 

Utilizing the power of AI, pricing systems can analyze various factors that influence consumer preferences. These factors include how customers perceive products, ongoing promotions, competitors’ prices and assortment, cross-product dependencies, store locations, and more. By considering all these variables, AI-driven models can provide sophisticated recommendations for price adjustments or even suggest when it may be best to maintain the current price. The integration of Deep Learning techniques and modern algorithms allows businesses to swiftly calculate billions of potential price combinations and deliver optimal pricing strategies, in close to real-time. 

To illustrate how AI works in informing price optimization software, let’s consider an example of a B2B chemical company that leverages AI to inform their price optimization strategy. This company produces a wide range of chemical products used in various industries such as manufacturing, agriculture, and healthcare. 

Using AI-powered pricing software, the chemical company collects and analyzes a vast amount of data, including: 

  • Market trends 
  • Raw material costs 
  • Production capacity 
  • Customer preferences, and; 
  • Competitors’ pricing strategies 

The AI algorithms extract insights from this data, identifying patterns and correlations that are crucial for optimizing pricing decisions. 

For instance, the company wants to determine the best price for a specific chemical used in the agriculture industry. The AI pricing software considers factors such as: 

  • Seasonality 
  • Demand fluctuations 
  • Weather 
  • Global Market Trends 
  • Supply chain dynamics 
  • Regulatory changes that may impact pricing. 

With the help of AI, the pricing software generates various pricing scenarios and simulates the potential outcomes. It evaluates the impact of different price points on demand, market share, and profitability. The AI system applies advanced optimization algorithms to identify the pricing strategy that maximizes revenue while considering factors such as price elasticity, production costs, and market competitiveness. 

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By utilizing AI in their price optimization process, the chemical company can make informed decisions that balance competitiveness, profitability, and customer satisfaction.  

AI algorithms continuously learn from market feedback, customer behavior, and other data sources to refine pricing strategies over time. This approach enables businesses to adapt quickly to changing market dynamics, optimize pricing across different customer segments and product lines, and ultimately drive sustainable growth and profitability. 

AI & ML Working Together in Price Optimization Software  

Price optimization software that integrates ML and AI offers businesses a powerful tool to uncover growth opportunities and insights. These advanced solutions analyze extensive data from multiple sources, generating accurate and dynamic pricing recommendations. 

ML algorithms enable the software to create predictive models, forecasting sales and revenue under various pricing scenarios. This helps businesses identify the optimal price range that maximizes profitability and revenue for specific products or services. 

However, AI takes it up a notch by incorporating real-time market data and consumer behavior to enable dynamic pricing recommendations. For instance, you can increase prices when you know a competitor’s stock is running low. Customers seeking immediate availability may be willing to pay a higher price, knowing they can obtain the item sooner. 

This AI-powered price optimization also provides a competitive advantage. When conversions are low, AI-informed pricing can be used to lower prices and increase conversions to align with overall business goals. 

The true benefit of combining ML and AI in price optimization is its scalability, automation, and flexibility. It caters to diverse business objectives, whether it’s maximizing profit, volume, revenue, or increasing market share. 

Discover more about the fascinating possibilities of Pricing AI in this insightful article:  

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Or to discover more about the amazing benefits of the price optimization that the combined power of ML and AI make possible, check out The Ultimate Guide to Price Optimization Software here. 

Sylvain Rougemaille

Senior Product Manager , Pricefx

Sylvain Rougemaille PhD is Senior Product Manager at Pricefx based in France. He has 15 years of experience in the IT industry and AI. He obtained his PhD on Software Engineering applied to AI in 2008. Since then, he has participated the creation of two startups aiming at the diffusion of AI to solve complex industrial problems as aircraft optimization, genomic simulation, and ultimately price optimization. In 2015 he co-founded Brennus Analytics where he occupied the position of Chief Product Officer. The purpose of it was to bring the PO&M software market unrivalled optimization capabilities thanks to Multi-Agents’ AI. Since 2020 and its acquisition by Pricefx he is pushing pricing science even further as the Price Optimization and Science Manager.