LoboJane Virtual Budtender
An AI-powered shopping assistant designed to provide safer cannabis use in Canada. The virtual budtender is capable of getting user needs and making recommendations, ordering, and cancelling orders through smart conversations. The recommendation algorithm and smart menu facilitate ordering products from local legal stores.
Our mission at Lobo was to combine forward-thinking, science and cutting-edge technology to radically improve the legal cannabis experience in Canada. And with that in mind, we built new products over the course of 3 years that created value both for users and business.
My Role
As the director of product management and creator of LoboJane Virtual Budtender, I worked with our multidisciplinary team to take the Virtual budtender from concept and ideation, MVP to launch.
I conducted user surveys and UX research, validated customer demand with MVP, managed customer onboarding, oversaw AI training and worked closely with the CEO, business team and lead engineer throughout the way.
As the technical member of the Lobo team, I had additional responsibilities including product ownership, running marketing campaigns, creating the go-to-market strategy, and aiding in AI development.
Product
LoboJane Virtual Budtender collects user Cannabis Genetic report from their Lobo Genetics account so it knows who the customer is, how frequently they consume cannabis, and their genetics information; When the user is logged in, their personal recommendations instantly shows up and they can order their recommendations from their local legal store.
The customer can be as specific or general when asking for new product recommendations. The Virtual Budtender also handles the entire guest experience for the ordering without extra input or logins from the customers.
EVOLUTION
The original concept behind the Virtual Budtender revolved around the lack of knowledge in safe cannabis use after legalization in Canada. The program was a testbed to allow the product team and to gain insights into the customer experience in the retail market with minimal cost and resources.
I was able to validate the need for a guided online ordering experience for users and an in-store shopping assistant for store management through MVP. The program proved to be a big success giving us full detail into the pain points for both direct consumers and retail cannabis stores.
After market-fit validation through MVP, I outlined the Smart Menu as an addition to the point of interaction between user and the Virtual Budtender. I then designed a hybrid mobile app that used a mix of conversational UI and traditional interfaces. Interviews about the app with direct consumers and store managers proved to be positive.
Utilizing the conversational concept and the features designed for the mobile app, we were able to minimize risk and start on the first version of an intelligent budtender that used user input to find and recommend/order cannabis – the Virtual Budtender was born.
It took us less than 6 months to take the product from an idea for a shopping assistant program to being a virtual budtender in the hands of the first direct customer and running in the first legal store in downtown Toronto.
Metrics
92% of actions are performed through the Virtual Budtender conversational UI over traditional interfaces.
Virtual budtender reduced the cost overhead for partner stores by 25% in 3 months.