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.