F7 Labs, which is a U.S-based research firm of Indian e-commerce marketplace Flipkart, is planning to build artificial intelligence (AI)-based products at the research center. This move seems to be aimed at growing its presence in the Silicon Valley.
This will also be helpful for the e-commerce platform for improving its business processes and interactions. The team at F7 Labs, which currently comprises of 10 people, is working on creating a model to determine which products get returned the most.
With this project, they are looking build a more cost-effective way to manage those returns and has automated the moderation of comments and product reviews that appear on its platform. Mihir Naware, Director Product at F7 Labs, told ET:
Given the scope of the opportunity to deploy artificialintelligence solutions to an ecommerce market like India, we are looking to grow the lab. There are Indian expats in the Valley who we think would be interested in working on the large data sets that we have at Flipkart.
While the company is looking to expand its presence in the Silicon Valley and grow its technology, there is the possibility of team expansion happening in the coming weeks. As per ET, Mihir Naware has declined to specify the number of new personnel who’re being brought onboard.
The F7 Labs is said to have been isolated from the upheaval that Flipkart has seen over the past few months. Naware said,
There is an understanding at Flipkart that, to deliver at scale we will need artificial intelligence and that the Valley is the place where the cutting-edge research is being done. We talked to the CEO after he took over and there was a lot of encouragement. In that sense, we are slightly isolated from the changes.
In recent times, Flipkart has undergone top-level restructuring a couple of times. In the most recent change, former Tiger Global executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy took over as CEO earlier this year. The company has also seen some top-level executives leave. Most recently, the company’s Chief Operating Officer Nitin Seth resigned.
Despite many setbacks, the company is trying to move forward. The very recent $1.4 billion funding round has provided the much needed boost to the company. It is also in talks to acquire Snapdeal in order to take on the aggressively-expanding Amazon in India.
