AI techniques have been applied to some degree in retailing for over a decade, but mostly for enhanced recommendations based on preferences, and in various trials designed to exploit emotion during selling. ViSenze, founded in 2012 and based in Singapore with $14 million funding so far, was one of the first start-ups to spot an opportunity applying AI based visual processing to product recommendation. Its technology now supports not just recognition of products but also object-based processing within the image, to develop associations with customers’ personal preferences. It can now combine this with metadata and keywords, so it is no longer confined just to image processing. The firm’s opening strategy was led by the observation that ecommerce was starting to…