Key AI Trends Molding the Retail Industry

By: Retail CIO Outlook | Thursday, July 23, 2020

With digitalization changing the retail sector's landscape, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a reality now and is present in people's daily lives.

FREMONT CA: Although physical stores are still relevant, e-commerce brings fierce competition and new standards of customer expectations. To stay ahead of the new entrants and to keep up with the pace of digital transformation, retailers are now adopting new technologies, especially artificial intelligence, to remain relevant in a crowded market. Mitigating many retail challenges, artificial intelligence is being used to personalize the shopping experience, optimizing the supply chain, and increasing conversion rates through massive customer data. Artificial Intelligence (AI) also provides an edge to the physical stores and helps the traditional brands to stay competitive in the market. With a focus on the consumer, AI is allowing companies from different segments to understand and anticipate customer behaviors and desires.

Here are the top three AI trends that is revamping the retail industry.

Computer Vision

Computer vision has numerous applications in multiple sectors. However, in retail, this technology is completely transforming the customer experience, both in physical stores and online. For instance, Amazon surprised the customers when it opened an Amazon Go store, where payment boxes did not exist. In these stores, customers can pick the items of their choice and leave the store without using their credit cards. The items are scanned, and customers are billed through their Amazon account, using computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning. With the help of in-store cameras and artificial intelligence, companies can monitor their products' performance on the shelves and conduct an analysis using machine learning to optimize product placement and promotion.

Robots enhance in-store experience with AI

The introduction of new apps is saving customers from the arduous shopping experience. After entering the store, the user opens the app and starts chatting with the AI bot. On receiving the instructions for specific store items, robots can check if the items are in stock and alert the employees when they feel frustrated by the customers. Here, the robot reads the customer's emotions through sentiment analysis, understanding, and classification of opinions expressed through language. This tool is one of the most valuable branded AI solutions and is powerful enough to monitor people's thoughts or feelings in real-time.

Image Recognition Application

AI is supporting the search and discovery in a saturated retail environment. Retail stores are leveraging image recognition to make it easier for them to get what they are searching for.

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