Chronopost has announced that it is acquiring a stake in ILLUIN Technology, a developer of innovative projects based on artificial intelligence. This acquisition of a 5% stake is part of the close collaboration that may exist between the two companies. After having designed two AI systems together, Chronopost’s arrival in ILLUIN Technology’s capital aims to develop new technological projects.

A close collaboration with the objective of exploiting artificial intelligence

The partnership between ILLUIN Technology and Chronopost is the result of a close collaboration. The two French companies have already worked together to develop two platforms using artificial intelligence to support certain sectors of Chronopost’s business:

• The Leonard chatbot can handle most user requests online and directs them to one of 60 possible delivery scenarios. This application is available via Rich Communication Services (RCS), Messenger, Google Assistant or through Chronopost’s Interactive Voice Server (IVS). The company states that the chatbot has reduced contacts to customer service by 10%. The advantage is also that Leonard works 7 days a week and 24 hours a day, unlike the customer service.
• The PhotoConfirm application is the result of the development of an image analysis algorithm. It is an internal Chronopost tool that guarantees the smooth delivery of parcels in the event of disputes. Approximately 40,000 photos are sent by the delivery drivers and managed by the application. ILLUIN Technology has developed a set of deep learning and computer vision models capable of operating in real time to analyse delivery photos in strict compliance with RGPD regulations so that the application can detect parcels in the images, categorise a delivery as successful or not, detect deliveries that do not comply with the information provided by the delivery drivers, etc.

New innovative perspectives thanks to artificial intelligence

Thanks to these previous achievements, ILLUIN Technology is well acquainted with the world of transport and parcel delivery. The company is now looking to design new solutions adapted to Chronopost’s strategic challenges. Benoît Frette, Managing Director, in charge of Operations and Customer Relations at Chronopost, comments on ILLUIN Technology’s contribution to the design of Leonard:

“One of the main key success factors of the Léonard project was ILLUIN Technology’s ability to offer excellent engineers to industrialize the solution after their data scientists had developed the core of the chatbot. It was thanks to the smooth handover between these two skill sets, and the efficiency of the developers afterwards, that we were able to quickly deploy Leonard

in 5 countries and across multiple channels until it became a true internal reference tool.”
Among the projects linking the two companies is the desire to integrate into the Lénoard chatbot, new NLP technologies so that its ability to understand users is optimized. In addition to the platforms already developed by ILLUIN Technology, the use of computer vision would be envisaged with a view to detecting non-standard packages likely to damage equipment in logistics hubs. The automated analysis of voice data from the company’s call centers will potentially be exploited, in strict compliance with RGPD regulations and for the purpose of improving customer service.

Robert Vesoul, CEO of ILLUIN Technology highlighted his company’s motivations for the tie-up:

“At ILLUIN Technology, all our actions are motivated by the desire to have an impact on our customers’ businesses. This is also the basis of our collaboration with Chronopost, which has major strategic and operational challenges to which the only effective and sustainable response is the concrete contribution of state-of-the-art technologies.”

Translated from Chronopost et ILLUIN Technology : l’intelligence artificielle au service des livraisons