Shelvi is an automated assistant, not a person. It tells you where things are kept in this shop.
1. Where answers come from
- Only from the shop's own list of products and where they're kept, which the shop's staff look after.
- It doesn't guess or look things up anywhere else. If it can't find something, it says so and suggests asking a colleague.
2. How it answers
- It matches the words of your question against the shop's list. It doesn't write answers with a chatbot: every answer is put together from the shop's own list.
- If its words match nothing in the list, Google Cloud in London turns your question into numbers that stand for its meaning, to find similar products. Those numbers are used once and never kept.
- For a question that doesn't name a product, like “something for a barbecue”, or one search can't find, an AI language model (Google's Gemini, run for us by Google Cloud in London, or in Belgium when London is busy) may suggest which of the shop's products to look for. It can only choose from the shop's list, and it never writes the answer you see or hear.
- Ask about allergies, diets or health and it still only tells you where things are, and reminds you to check the label.
- If you ask by voice, Google Cloud's speech-to-text service in the EU turns your recording into words first. You'll see the words in the box, so you can check it heard you right. The recording isn't kept.
- If you leave the voice on, Shelvi reads the answer aloud. To make the sound, Shelvi's answer (never your question) goes to Google Cloud's text-to-speech service in the EU. If that isn't working, your phone reads the answer with its own voice instead.
- With a weak signal, your phone answers from its own copy of the shop's list, in the same words.
3. When to ask a colleague
- Things move, and a shelf can be empty. If what you find doesn't match the answer, a colleague can help, and you can report the wrong answer so the shop can fix it.
- It doesn't know what's in stock right now.
- Don't rely on it for ingredients, allergens or anything about your health: check the label or ask a colleague.
4. Your privacy
You don't sign in, and it doesn't know who you are. The privacy notice for shoppers says what we keep and for how long.
