The single biggest frustration for online shoppers is a search bar that doesn’t understand them. A shopper arrives with a specific need in mind and is met with irrelevant results, or a dead end that reads “No results found.” This isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s the critical point where a potential sale is lost.
Against an industry backdrop of website search functions that rely on rigid keyword-matching and fail to comprehend true shopper intent, Gill Capital Group, a leading retail brand development and distribution company, is proactively transforming the omnichannel product discovery experience. By harnessing generative AI (gen AI), Gill Capital is setting a new standard for the global brands it manages in Southeast Asia, such as H&M, ALO, and On Running.
Through Google Cloud’s AI Cloud Takeoff (AI CTO) program, Gill Capital has embarked on multiple AI innovation projects. One of them involves embedding a gen AI-powered search agent into e-commerce websites and apps (iOS, Android) for H&M Indonesia and H&M Thailand.
Built using Vertex AI Search for Commerce, this AI agent understands the true intent behind search queries in natural language, whether they’re in English or local languages. The agent can decipher a customer’s needs, even if they key in “เสื้อเบลาส์สำหรับวันอากาศร้อนชื้น” (blouse for hot and humid weather) or “tunik elegan untuk Lebaran” (elegant tunic for Eid Al-Fitr) with a typo. By focusing on the meaning of words, not just keywords, it surfaces contextually relevant results. On the backend, the agent also automatically analyzes and organizes a vast product catalog, freeing staff up from the tedious task of researching and adding keywords to each product.
Going a step further, Gill Capital is integrating a conversational agent into these platforms. Also developed using Vertex AI Search for Commerce, this agent serves as a virtual shopping assistant, surfacing personalized product recommendations through multi-turn conversation. It also helps customers with more complex tasks like checking if an item is in stock at nearby H&M stores—creating a seamless connection between digital and physical—or answering questions like, “What’s the return policy?”
After piloting these two solutions with an initial group of users, Gill Capital has validated their effectiveness in boosting engagement and sales. There are now plans to roll them out for H&M Indonesia and H&M Thailand later this year.
Victor Siow, Group Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Gill Capital Group, said: “At Gill Capital, we create innovative, localized retail concepts for brands in our portfolio to help them thrive in Southeast Asia. While search technology has advanced from keyword-matching to semantic and agentic search, many online retailers haven’t kept pace. With Google Cloud, we’re utilizing the same underlying components that power Google Search today to gain a competitive edge. By grounding best-in-class reasoning models like Gemini 2.5 Flash on company data sources, we can also ensure our AI agents provide relevant and accurate outputs. As part of our AI strategy, we’re now bringing these horizontal search and conversation use cases to other brands while pursuing new applications in key areas like supply chain optimization.”
The AI CTO program: Providing a clear pathway to enterprise AI excellence at scale
Google Cloud’s AI CTO program, organized in partnership with Digital Industry Singapore (DISG) under the Singapore Government’s Enterprise Compute Initiative, aims to establish AI Centers of Excellence (AI CoEs) within 300 digitally-mature, Singapore-based companies.
Using a proven Google Cloud framework, the program will help each participating company establish a dedicated in-house unit (i.e., an AI CoE) that will centralize AI-related expertise, resources, and governance; drive technology, process, and people transformation; and ensure AI innovation initiatives are aligned with business objectives and implemented securely and responsibly.
Each company will work with a DISG-appointed, Google Cloud-certified technical consultancy partner to establish its AI CoE. It will receive partner consultancy support, Google Cloud credits, and Google Cloud Skills Boost licenses worth up to SG$500,000 to pilot at least one minimum viable product that addresses a high-value AI use case. AI CTO is designed to help companies create, implement, and scale enterprise AI solutions that boost their competitiveness and unlock new revenue opportunities.
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