As the first self-service supermarket in the Netherlands, Albert Heijn has grown into an innovative food tech company. With over 80,000 employees who work in the 700 company-owned stores to stock shelves, help customers and keep the stores running smoothly, Albert Heijn wanted to leverage AI to make their daily work easier. EPAM, Microsoft and Albert Heijn partnered together to build a virtual assistant that is integrated into the existing employee app (@AH) that optimizes daily tasks and enhances the overall employee experience.
Albert Heijn is always looking for ways to leverage technology to improve the customer experience, empower employees and optimize operations so it can continuously work towards its mission: “Together we make eating better the easy choice. For everyone.” Throughout Albert Heijn’s 138 years of existence, innovation has been embedded in its DNA — being the first to introduce the barcode, hand scanner and customer app. So, when GenAI emerged, the company quickly started thinking about how this new technology could help solve its business challenges.
Albert Heijn partnered with EPAM from ideation to validation to delivery of a new virtual assistant powered by AI. The project started with workshops and persona development and was followed by the creation of low-fi prototypes that simulated store scenarios to understand the daily challenges of employees. Based on these learnings, a working MVP was created that connects to back-end systems and leverages Microsoft Azure. With the AI assistant, employees can find the right information to stock shelves and help customers quickly — increasing productivity and enhancing their experience.
This solution is one of several AI use cases that the company is working on, which are all underpinned by Albert Heijn’s GenAI enablement platform co-developed by EPAM. This platform speeds implementation of AI-enabled use cases at scale, while ensuring proper governance and security.