Grab scales personalized merchant support across Southeast Asia with Claude

Grab, Southeast Asia's leading super-app, uses Claude to democratize business consulting for millions of merchant partners. With their Merchant AI Assistant, Grab gives businesses and everyday entrepreneurs access to the kind of expert guidance traditionally available only to large enterprises.

Key results with Claude:

• 5.7 percentage point increase in resolution rate
• 8% growth in inbound merchant conversations
• 25% reduction in negative sentiment

The challenge of scaling personalized merchant support

Grab serves over 44 million monthly transacting users across mobility, deliveries, and financial services. Their merchant network ranges from small merchants to large retail chains across multiple countries, each with unique needs.

"One of our challenges stems from our rapid growth and extensive merchant network across Southeast Asia. We identified a crucial need: providing consistent, high-quality support to our merchant partners at scale," said Chris Collard, Product Manager at Grab.

Traditional support models couldn't efficiently serve this diverse merchant base while maintaining the personalized advice that drives success. Small merchants needed different support than more established ones, yet both deserved the same level of quality assistance. Grab faced the challenge of democratizing enterprise-level account management—making high-quality business recommendations available to every merchant partner, regardless of size, at any time of day across the region's diverse markets and languages.

Choosing Claude for performance and partnership

Grab evaluated multiple AI models through rigorous testing of technical capabilities and real-world business impact. The team tracked model performance on merchant engagement and retention while interviewing merchant partners to understand their experiences.

"We ran evaluations focused on our GrabMerchant AI Assistant use case, and Claude models demonstrated the best performance for our requirements," Collard explained. Claude's ability to maintain an authentic and empathetic human tone when engaging with their wide range of users was especially important.

Beyond performance, Grab valued Anthropic's approach to problem-solving, with collaboration that extended beyond simply licensing technology to include architectural support and shared evaluation frameworks. Collard adds, "Anthropic works alongside our teams to solve business challenges, making them a true strategic collaborator in our AI journey."

How Claude creates a 24/7 business advisor

Claude powers the conversational heart of Grab's Merchant AI Assistant. It processes merchant-specific data to deliver personalized recommendations tailored to each business. The Assistant operates across Grab's 8 regional markets, seamlessly handling multiple regional languages while maintaining consistent quality.

The AI Assistant functions like a dedicated business consultant available around the clock, providing:

• Practical guidance: Detects missing menu photos and guides merchants to add them step-by-step
• Strategic recommendations: Suggests new menu items based on local trends and competitor analysis
• Marketing insights: Offers advice on effective promotional campaigns when competitors boost sales through promos
• Business analysis: Helps merchants analyze performance data and identify growth opportunities
• Operational support: Provides guidance on navigating the GrabMerchant app and platform features

This approach transforms the Assistant from a simple help desk into a true business advisor that understands each merchant's unique context and goals.

Driving business growth across the region

Grab's AI Merchant Assistant has transformed how merchants operate their businesses. It has become a trusted advisor they turn to throughout their entrepreneurial journey. Rather than just answering basic questions, Merchant Assistant engages in strategic conversations about growth opportunities and performance optimization.

This merchant success has created a ripple effect throughout Grab's ecosystem. When merchants implement the assistant's recommendations—like adding menu photos, launching targeted promotions, or optimizing their listings—consumers can find a more vibrant platform filled with engaging offers and diverse options. Better-performing merchants lead to satisfied customers, creating a virtuous cycle that strengthens the platform.

The Assistant's deployment across diverse regional markets showcases Claude's multilingual capabilities, ensuring a small vendor in Bangkok receives the same quality advice as a large restaurant chain in Jakarta, both in their preferred language.

Expanding AI's role in regional commerce

Grab sees Claude as the long-term foundation for their merchant support ecosystem. The company plans to expand the Assistant's capabilities and streamline development through standardized infrastructure for multiple engineering teams to contribute innovations more efficiently. The company is exploring MCPs for their backend infrastructure to accelerate new feature implementation across teams.

The company's mission extends beyond technology to economic empowerment, ensuring that small and medium-sized businesses across the region as well as everyday entrepreneurs have access to the same quality recommendations and insights that drive success in the digital economy.