Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 26 | Page 37

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// A s technology becomes more and more portable, so do we become more and more mobile. As our lives become more automated, as cars drive themselves, as supermarkets predict and deliver the groceries we need, this all frees us up to have more time to do fun things. Like shopping. FEATURE: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Vaughan Rowsell, CEO of Vend, looks at on how Artificial Intelligence in retail is changing the industry But wait, isn’t automation and Amazon killing retail? The retail industry is set to benefit immensely from technology and AI, and retail is an industry I know a bit about having helped it adapt to technology over the last 11 years. Technology and AI could do all our shopping for us. Technology and algorithms can find the right sized clothes and automatically pick items based on our preferences, AI can do this right now. But I don’t think we want to be dressed by our AI or have the gifts we buy our friends automatically picked for us based on their Facebook activity. That can lead to some awkward ‘make America great again” themed gifts. Smart business assistants are already popping up, powered by AI, that can process all your key business data in real time and make sensible suggestions, like what your next supplier order should be based on how sales have been. AI can help you identify the profile of your best customers and give you tips on how to best engage with them. But I don’t think we will delegate all this to AI because this takes away our free will and our ability to make choices. You can drive my car and pick the route but please don’t pick my underwear. Every morning your personalised store AI can greet the store owner with the summary of yesterday’s sales and what to try different today. Try discounting these products, and these customers are slipping away so perhaps run an online campaign to re-engage with them. Instead I think our personalised AI assistant will be there in our ears helping us find and navigate to the stores we are looking for, give us in depth product information as we hold an item, manage our finances asking us if we really need that new pair of shoes and finally have someone honest at the changing room to tell us if our ass looks big in this. www.intelligentcio.com AI will automate the chores in life, like grocery shopping, making more time for us to cherish things and have new experiences. I imagine AI as being that smart friend you want to hang out with because they make you smarter. Technology isn’t going to replace us, it’s going to free us up for the more important things in life, like meeting friends, going shopping or seeing our family. It will become our trusted advisor, it won’t run our lives or businesses, but it will give us some pretty good advice. More practically if you are the retailer then the time that AI will save you will be the difference between business failure and amazing growth. In small business this is where you will see AI make the biggest impact today. Every day, small business owners are facing make-or-break decisions. Decisions based on data and 9.72 times out of 10 rely on solid analytical skills. Exactly the sort of thing that a computer is great at. This, I guess, all depends on whether our personal AI assistant is provided ‘for free’ by Google or Facebook. Nothing is ever free, and you will end up with an annoying friend trying to convince you to buy vitamins and matrices all day. My hope is we’ll all retain some semblance of free will in the AI driven world. So, we can all make better life decisions, and have more time to bump into old friends. n INTELLIGENTCIO 37