Murphy: A behind-the-scenes look at our AI consultant

Murphy: A behind-the-scenes look at our AI consultant

Saptarshi Nath

Saptarshi Nath

Announcement

May 14, 2025

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A couple of months back, we launched Murphy—our AI consultant. Here’s a bit of backstory behind the launch and why we created an AI consultant, not an AI data analyst.

The product and tech teams at Airboxr have been experimenting with AI since 2023. Short of building our own ML models from scratch, we realized that it will be a while before we can trust LLMs to deal with data. If you asked an AI about your profit margins and it got it right 80% of the times, would you trust it?

When I saw multiple “AI for Analytics” products launch within a short period from a single accelerator program (not naming names here, but rhymes with Daisy), I have to admit I thought they knew something we missed.

So we went back to first principles and found three core motivations:

  • Revenue leaders don’t want to, and shouldn’t have to, deal with data. No brand owner built a fashion company because they’re passionate about data and spreadsheets. Their goal was always to build an enduring fashion brand.

  • Leaders need actionable insights to drive decision-making, with the option to access the data behind it. Dashboards don’t cut it. That’s why you download CSV files from dashboards. But you’re not a data analyst. So now you’re stuck. You go back to gut-based decisions.

  • Business leaders don’t know how to manage a data analyst, even a virtual one. If the answer you receive from your analyst depends highly on the way you ask your question, then you better be confident you’re asking the right question the right way.

Start your free trial and experience Murphy now

Start your free trial and experience Murphy now

Start your free trial and experience Murphy now

But we realized the right answer was always with us. Our team would do dozens of calls every week, where the most popular question was:

I see the data. Now what do I do with it?

Sidenote to founders around the world: nobody cares about your product, they care about the problem your product solves for them.

We were looking at AI the wrong way. Customers didn’t need another AI tool. They didn’t need another AI doing a junior intern’s role. They needed help with what they didn’t know, or couldn’t do, themselves.

For us, that was bringing together 20+ years of retail and e-commerce experience to connect the dots and help them solve the problem they were facing right now. That’s why our customers trusted the team: because we could help them brainstorm solutions based on what the data was telling us. Doing an RFM analysis wasn’t cool. Finding 947 Champions from your customer base to create lookalike audiences on Meta… that was cool!

So we decided to clone our knowledge instead. That’s how Murphy was born.

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When you run any of our 150+ reports on Airboxr, our new AI consultant: Murphy will help you identify what the data is trying to tell you. It addresses the “so what?” from your data.

Go ahead and run a report from your Airboxr app, and see Murphy in action today.

But remember: nobody knows your business like you do. Murphy is still learning and I’d compare her to a mid-level management consultant. She doesn’t have all the answers but, at times, she thinks she does. If in doubt, hit us up on the in-app chat and speak to the real experts.

Saptarshi Nath

About the Author

Saptarshi is the CEO at Airboxr. He is a former VC, DTC entrepreneur, and consultant. He works closely with other DTC founders to help them identify the right data for their decision-making.

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