OVERDEVEST Democratizing horticulture through intelligent commerce architecture

Our Approach

The market is flooded with countless AI gardening apps that all seem to fall short one way or the other. As a third generation nursery, Overdevest is uniquely equipped with generational knowledge to support first-time planters, garden enthusiasts, and professional landscapers. We set out to design intelligent human-in-the-loop systems that uniquely augment human expertise with AI capability.

• Ovie®, is a confluence of delicate training by human experts, AI’s omnipresent ability, uniquely brought together through intuitive experience design.

• Ovie acts as the foundational cornerstone for consumers, professionals, and gardening hobbyist on Overdevest’s one-of-a-kind commerce experience powered by Shopify Plus.

• As consumers interact with the brand, AI agents, and commerce channels, Klaviyo’s Data Platform learns more about them and drives personalized experiences across every touch point of the customer journey.

Our Solution

We began with an idea that led to a conversation. IM Digital translated Overdevest’s vision into an actionable plan and a working proof of concept in 6 weeks using our proven AI Stratright approach. Through a series of iterative discussions, development, and testing we progressively realized one milestone after the other.

We strategically discerned what to build custom and what tools to buy and integrate. As Ovie evolved through successive iterative experience design and unique capabilities, Shopify Plus supported a streamlined time-to-market by supporting critical commerce functionality out-of-the-box so our designers, architects, and engineers could focus on innovation.

Relay, IM Digital’s iPaas platform efficiently and effectively connected the backend, AI, and consumer-facing systems together effortlessly. Klaviyo’s Data Platform offers a single customer view across the entire shopping journey, for every customer and support’s nearly every aspect of the customer experience from Klaviyo’s unique Shopify-specific Customer Hub functionality, to email & SMS automation, reviews & reputation management, and most recently K:Service, providing automated customer support.

We approached this as an AI-first build. Our team established a retrieval augmented generation pipeline connected directly to a structured knowledge base curated by domain experts. When people ask specific questions, Ovie retrieves tailored responses from custom knowledge graphs that ensure coherent responses directed by human expertise.

We trained Ovie on Overdevest’s extensive library of youtube videos, thousands of blog posts, staff documentation, and the CEO’s own books on gardening to ensure Ovie reflects authentic, regionally-specific nursery expertise rather than generic botanical data. We designed Ovie to answer questions online while directing people to their local garden centers for purchases, preserving the relationship between digital discovery and in-person expertise.