Retailers find themselves at a crossroads. AI is the way forward, but deciding how to implement, integrate, and optimize it to achieve critical goals like advanced personalization and customer engagement remains an open question. According to Deloitte's 2024 US Retail Industry Outlook, half of all retail executives lack confidence in their company’s ability to use AI effectively.
This series—AI & Personalization, of which this is the fifth and final chapter—explores how AI can execute omnichannel engagement strategies, deliver one-to-one personalization, and set the stage for continued optimization and improvement. We also discuss the challenges retailers face in realizing these benefits, including data processing and integrating insights into existing workflows.
Eagle Eye has developed a data science tool designed specifically to help retailers overcome these challenges and realize the full potential of AI. Let’s dive into this solution – EagleAI – and how it’s built for retailers looking to harness AI.
The transformative potential of AI in data utilization and personalization is clear. Companies incorporating intensive data analytics are 23 times likelier to outperform their competitors that don’t. Personalization at scale is the holy grail of retail, with the chance to deliver offers to individual customers as and when they shop. Predictive AI can optimize, accelerate, and scale each of these capabilities, but integrating it with legacy systems is a persistent challenge. This leaves retailers unable to deal with the millions of customer data points and offer the variations they need to achieve truly advanced personalization and optimal data utilization.
That hasn’t stopped retailers from trying, however. In our recent eBook, AI & the Current State of Retail Marketing, we found that 48% of retailers were actively trying to increase the relevancy of their offers. Retailers are investing in AI solutions to accomplish this, with 80% of retailers expected to adopt AI in the next three years.
The real challenge isn't the intention but rather the lack of a retail-specific solution that can be easily integrated into retailers’ tech stacks. EagleAI changes all that.
EagleAI has been developed not for retailers but by retailers. Our CEO, Tim Mason, was instrumental in developing the Tesco Clubcard loyalty program. His vision led to the acquisition of Paris-based SaaS company Untie Nots and the eventual development of EagleAI.
This solution relies on machine-learning algorithms that account for various factors, including shopping predictions, customer responsiveness, budgets, and more. These algorithms, working in tandem, ensure personalization can be built at an individual level and scaled quickly to produce millions of offer variations.
What separates EagleAI from other solutions is that the algorithms and features are designed to be deployed where they will have the most impact. Whether retailers require better data processing, more engagement via gamification, or more relevant offers, EagleAI uses intelligent retail data science to address those specific needs.
EagleAI's primary purpose is to help retailers adapt to their customers' wants. Our consumer-centric approach leverages technology to simplify how retailers fulfill customer expectations. In other words, EagleAI isn’t reinventing the wheel but is making the wheel perform to a higher standard. By providing retailers with crucial insights, EagleAI directly impacts campaign success rates and makes promotional spending more efficient.
However, EagleAI doesn’t work purely from a customer-facing posture. This tool also works to change how retailers manage their supplier relationships while having a positive knock-on effect on customers. The platform enables retailers to strengthen these relationships by leveraging the insights that generate new business, build loyalty, grow average spending, and drive innovations. It's a win for retailers, customers, and suppliers.
Rather than creating disconnected tools, Eagle Eye provides an AI suite that enables retailers to achieve their loyalty, promotion, and engagement goals within one unified solution. EagleAI is the "brain" of the Eagle Eye AIR platform's central nervous system: it provides the intelligence and dynamic decision-making, while AIR executes real-time offers at every customer touchpoint at scale.
The power behind these combined solutions is data utilization; with EagleAI and Eagle Eye AIR, a retailer that typically uses just 5% of the data available to it can now approach 100%. From an engagement and promotional standpoint, this leads to compelling, personalized offers and interactions, whereby no two customer journeys are ever the same.
Retailers face considerable challenges. As highlighted throughout our AI & Personalization series, attracting and retaining shoppers is more challenging than ever, with more than one in three consumers no longer loyal to specific retail brands. EagleAI supports retailers in driving loyalty, reimagining the customer experience, and growing revenue and profitability by:
According to Gallup, fully engaged customers provided a 23% premium in everything from relationship growth to profitability. Yet only one in four U.S. employees believed their brands actually delivered on their promises. EagleAI offers an AI suite designed to empower retailers to make authentic data-driven decisions every time.
AI as a concept is poised to transform retail, but wielding its power requires creating tools and features that directly impact retailers’ engagement and promotional capabilities. EagleAI is revolutionizing retail personalization and setting a new global standard by combining advanced data science and real-time execution.
It's helping retailers move from offers based on customer segmentation to one-to-one personalization, where consumers enjoy an Instagram-esque timeline that changes every time they shop. Constant iterations and real-time optimizations accelerate the achievement of true one-to-one engagement.
Ultimately, any tool must prove its worth in dollars. EagleAI supports retailers in encouraging further customer spending while retaining their loyalty through next-generation retail experiences. It eliminates the inefficiencies and constraints inherent within retailers’ legacy solutions.
Throughout this series, we have focused on the immense challenges of demanding customers and the introduction of generative and predictive AI. The takeaway is that personalization and engagement through omnichannel experiences are the future, but retailers need AI solutions that help them execute and optimize those capabilities at scale.
EagleAI can be that solution. By automating the process of connecting and structuring customer data across touchpoints and using cutting-edge machine learning and AI to create uniquely personalized offers for customers rather than curating the 'best fit' set of offers based on a finite number available, EagleAI gets retailers closer to the "holy grail" of true one-to-one engagement. By tracking every customer's interaction with every promotion in real time, EagleAI helps optimize campaigns to maximize ROI and engagement.
If AI is the future of retail—and as we illustrate in this article series and our AI eBook, we believe it is—then EagleAI can put your retail enterprise on the path to that future.
If you're ready to learn how we can help you execute one-to-one personalized customer experiences, get ready to drive incremental growth with EagleAI. Book your demo today to learn more.