How enterprise AI will change brick and mortar retail

Many retail stores have yet to introduce AI into their business. However, it’s worth looking at what impact this technology will have on the industry.

This past year, artificial intelligence seeped into numerous facets of life. It seems as though no industry is exempt from this technology’s potential and those companies that implement AI are pulling ahead. According to Deloitte’s State of AI in the Enterprise 2018 report, 82% of early adopters of AI saw positive ROI. Revenues from the artificial intelligence for enterprise applications market worldwide is set to grow exponentially through 2025.

One industry heavily investing in AI is retail. Retail spending on AI will likely reach $7.3B by 2022. There are many applications for enterprise AI in retail. And while most think about the online impact of AI, brick and mortar retailers have uses for this technology as well. 

• Google is bringing AI to the call centre
• Customer experience in an AI world
• Do you speak data? Retailers and the data literacy opportunity

Many retail stores have yet to introduce AI into their business. However, it’s worth looking at what impact this technology will have on the industry. Here’s a look at how AI will impact physical retail stores.

Personalisation gets customers back into the store

As retailers know, loyal customers are the most valuable. AI solves the problem of getting those customers back into the store to buy again. Retailers have so much data to use to dissect buying patterns. Then, machine learning algorithms can predict future purchasing patterns of shoppers. Retailers can use this information to send offers on these products either online or by attaching specialised offers to catalogs. A completely personalised campaign will likely put the shopper back in the physical location because AI predicted what they would likely buy next and the offer gave them a nudge to go and buy the item.

For most retailers, the first step is understanding what data they have and what they can do with it. Furthermore, with the introduction of GDPR, it’s cru