Virgin Wines Uses AI to Personalise Customer Recommendations

Virgin Wines is beginning to use AI to provide its customers with tailored wine recommendations, announcing a partnership with product discovery software firm Preferabli that uses AI to help guide consumers to wines they are most likely to enjoy. The collaboration aims to better understand the taste of each customer.

This partnership is part of a long-term digital transformation strategy for Virgin Wines, one of the UK's largest online wine retailers. The initial phase will focus on enhancing the experience for its WineBank members.

“Our ambition is to create a shopping journey that feels personal, intelligent and uniquely supportive of each customer’s tastes,” says Danny Cooper, Chief Information and Digital Officer at Virgin Wines.

Danny adds: “Preferabli’s industry-leading machine-learning technology enables Virgin Wines to deliver a more intuitive, relevant and confidence-building experience at every touchpoint.”

The role of sensorial AI in wine selection

The technology behind the partnership is a system called sensorial AI, which is developed to model human preferences for taste, aroma and texture.

For a product like wine, this involves breaking down each bottle into its constituent sensory attributes, such as acidity, sweetness, tannin structure, body and specific flavour profiles.

By tagging these attributes, advanced machine learning systems can classify wines based on how they taste rather than just by grape or region.

Preferabli’s platform uses this sensorial AI model and a large dataset on its inventory to generate personalised recommendations. It matches wines with individual user signals gathered through guided questionnaires, purchase history, ratings and search requests.

“We’re imagining a world guided by individual preferences using machine intelligence with human touch,” explains Pam Dillon, Co-Founder and CEO of Preferabli.

Pam adds: “We’re very excited to be partnering with Virgin Wines, which is truly leading thinking on what it means to create personalised, vibrant digital experiences.”

A data-driven digital transformation

The first stage of Virgin Wines' strategy involves using the technology to power personalised email campaigns.

These campaigns will provide WineBank customers with a selection of wine recommendations based on their individual flavour profiles derived from their purchasing and rating history. This application of AI is intended to scale Virgin Wines' ability to offer bespoke service.

“Preferabli’s machine-learning platform gives us the capability to do that at scale,” Danny says.

This move could signal a change in how beverage retailers approach customer relationship management, moving from broader marketing segments to individual-level communication.

Modernising the customer journey

Looking ahead, the functionality provided by Preferabli will be integrated across the upcoming Virgin Wines mobile app and website.

This indicates a commitment to a consistent and data-driven customer experience across all digital platforms. Danny believes the tools are uniquely suited to Virgin Wines' ambition to modernise wine discovery and create a more engaging journey for every customer.

For consumers, the use of AI tools like Preferabli in the retail space can help navigate a complex market.

By offering recommendations based on past behaviour and stated preferences, the system could assist customers in avoiding the decision fatigue that can come with an abundance of choice. This allows for a more confident exploration of new and different wines.