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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
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