If you’re even a casual observer of the retail industry, you know that AI is the hot topic of the moment. And for good reason. Artificial intelligence applications have the potential to revolutionize many aspects of our businesses, from supply chains to physical and digital store operations to marketing. This is why retailers are making significant investments in this technology and why AI adoption in retail is projected to reach 80% in the next few years.
But the aspect of AI we’re most interested in here at Eagle Eye is how it can impact personalization. For a long time, we’ve said that the ‘holy grail’ of retail marketing is true one-to-one engagement, and with AI, that grail is finally within our reach.
This was the impetus for three initiatives we’ve recently undertaken at Eagle Eye: launching EagleAI, our own AI-powered data science solution built specifically for the grocery and retail sectors; bringing Untie Nots, a Paris-based SaaS company specializing in AI-driven gamification and promotions, into the Eagle Eye group; and appointing data science expert Jean-Matthieu Schertzer as our first Chief AI Officer.
We also wanted to explore the relationship between AI and personalization in a retail setting through a series of in-depth articles and eBooks, of which this is the first.
In our 2023 report, Grocery’s Great Loyalty Opportunity, we found that 60% of shoppers worldwide believe it is “extremely” or “very” important to receive offers from a store or brand that are personalized to their needs. At the same time, 53% of retailers we surveyed said that the ability to match the right offer to the right customer – in other words, personalize them – would make their promotional strategies more effective.
AI applications can help retailers meet consumer demand for personalized offers and deliver them efficiently at scale. But when will this technology be ready for implementation, and how will retailers make it fit alongside their current strategies and processes? Are any retailers already leveraging AI for personalization or promotions, and is it delivering results? And what does a comprehensive AI solution designed for retail look like, and what benefit would retailers derive from utilizing it?
These are the questions our experts endeavor to answer in this series.
Jean-Matthieu Schertzer, Eagle Eye’s Chief Artificial Intelligence (AI) Officer.
The first Chief AI Officer appointed within the Eagle Eye Group is dedicated to helping retailers and brands create hyper-personalised omnichannel experiences and direct, one-to-one connections with their customers. An alumnus of the Ecole Polytechnique, one of France's and Europe's most prestigious scientific schools, Jean-Matthieu's background includes applied mathematics, research engineering, general R&D, and data science. Before becoming the Eagle Eye group’s first CAIO, he was in executive leadership at Untie Nots. He also served as the Senior Data Scientist at H2O.ai, a data science manager and consultant at Quantmetry, and a research engineer at the Université de Liège.
Zyed Jamoussi, Co-Founder and President of Untie Nots, part of the Eagle Eye Group.
Zyed founded Untie Nots in Paris nearly a decade ago to help retailers modernize their approach to loyalty and promotions. In the process, he built a SaaS business that serves almost 60% of the French grocery market and provides AI-powered personalised challenges for the leading retailers in the region, including Auchan, Carrefour and E.Leclerc. Before his leadership of Untie Nots, an Eagle Eye company since January 2023, Zyed spent seven years in senior roles at emnos, part of the American Express Group and a leading provider of automated, data-driven solutions for retail category management and assortment planning. He was also a customer insights and business analysis manager at Groupe Rocher.
Tim Mason has over 25 years’ leadership experience in the grocery and retail industries, with a strong background in strategic marketing and customer loyalty. He was the Deputy CEO of Tesco from 2010 to 2012 and has held a number of senior roles in the Tesco Group including CMO, where he was responsible for the launch of Clubcard and Tesco.com. He is currently CEO of Eagle Eye, a SaaS technology company focused on delivering omnichannel personalization at scale for the world’s leading retailers.
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Jean-Matthieu Schertzer on 10 May, 2024
Retailers find themselves at a crossroads. AI is the way forward, but deciding how to implement, integrate, and optimize it to achieve critical goals...
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Jean-Matthieu Schertzer on 1 May, 2024
Imagine a supermarket that can predict what shoppers will buy before they enter the store? That’s the potential power of artificial intelligence (AI)...
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Sarah Jarvis on 15 July, 2020
Following my last blog, which discussed the importance of personalization, I explore what tools marketers need for success, along with benchmarks and...
