The service will debut first at three Seoul stores popular with foreign tourists: the Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station, Apgujeong Jungang and Ewha Jungang branches.
The assistant is built on ESTsoft's real-time conversational AI avatar platform, Perso Interactive, and has been tailored specifically for K-beauty retail. It primarily targets foreign shoppers in their 20s and 30s, engaging customers through an AI avatar that communicates in eight languages.
Key functions include language-barrier-free avatar service in eight languages, AI-driven product recommendations, barcode-based multilingual product information, automated handling of routine inquiries such as tax refunds, and a data dashboard tracking dwell time and customer behavior.
For the recommendations, ESTsoft paired its in-house engine, AURA, with tens of thousands of Olive Young product listings to match customers by skin concerns, texture preference and intended use.
Multilingual support emerged as the most requested feature in an internal survey of Olive Young staff, in which about 69.4 percent reported facing language barriers with customers and 54.8 percent said interpretation support was necessary.
"This is meaningful because it allows us to resolve the language barrier issues that global retail stores face with overseas customers, while also contributing to improved store performance," said Chung Sang-won, chief executive of ESTsoft.
An ESTsoft official told AJP that the company could not yet disclose any further expansion plans, citing confidentiality.
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.
