The artificial intelligence revolution has arrived and it should not worry anyone. AI is changing jobs (not replacing them) and augmenting human tasks in consumer goods, manufacturing, customer service and many more verticals. In retail and fashion, the biggest opportunities are in trend forecasting and better supply chain management. It's true that IT and customer service have been the first areas to see real change from the application of artificial intelligence to trim costs and increase efficiency. Last year, however, a number of brands, including the direct-to-consumer label Everlane, backed off after adopting AI-powered chatbots, because customers found them frustrating to use.

So, just how is AI improving the retail experience? Like most men in the world, shopping (especially shopping for clothes) is an unpleasant experience for me, as I really feel like my time could be much better utilized. I make it a personal mission to get in and out in minimal time. So, I wonder to myself, "Could AI make my experience better?" But I think there's a lot of potential for retailers to use AI to improve my shopping experience and make sure that I find what I need as quickly as possible, ensuring that I shop more frequently.

Despite the off-putting headlines and the ongoing shuttering of physical store locations, fashion apparel retailers might have reason to be hopeful. New technologies continue to serve as a beacon of hope -- and survival -- for merchants and suppliers.As chief scientist of JDA Software Group Inc.'s research and development team and supply chain innovation hub, Suresh Acharya described current conditions as "amazing times where new innovations" are coming out of research and are "capturing people's imaginations." Machine learning, artificial intelligence and predictive analytics is transforming retail. Here, Acharya shares his thoughts on the technologies that are shaping and disrupting the industry.WWD: There is a lot of discussion in the market about how artificial intelligence and machine learning is transforming business processes.

Pepper the robot certainly gets around. Besides welcoming folks at department stores and airports, the friendly android is also helping out at Pizza Hut and even working as a Buddhist priest. It recently put in a spell at a grocery store in Scotland, too, though admittedly that didn't work out so well. The diminutive droid's latest gig is at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. The organization claims to be "the first museum, research, and education complex in the world to experiment with this new and innovative technology," and is using 25 of the robots across its various locations in D.C. Built by Japanese telecoms giant SoftBank in collaboration with French robotics firm Aldebaran SAS, Pepper can recognize faces and emotions, and respond through voice or by showing messages and information on its torso-based tablet.

According to real estate data firm Co-Star, over 90 million square feet of retail space is slated to close this year, leading observers to point to an obvious truth: empathy matters in customer service. Getting it right is another story. When businesses are out of touch with consumer needs, consumers stop buying and stores start dying. Enter "affective computing," an area of research involving machines that can read and display emotional intelligence, with applications as far ranging from preventative medicine to music lessons and every commercial sector in between. The retail industry isn't the only one eying "emotion AI" as a potential savior from digital disruption, but the physical spaces that characterize the retail experience ares providing innovators with a ripe venue to demonstrate the power that capturing and understanding customer sentiment can have.

If you're still wondering what is conversational commerce? It's a way of shopping or making any purchase online within a messaging or chat channel, like Facebook Messenger or Telegram by interacting with a brand's chatbot. We open a messaging channel to interact with a brand, a chatbot welcomes us, asks how it can help, and we're ultimately presented with just-the-right product or service we need. A virtual department store with a virtual salesperson, or a virtual assistant helping us place food or taxi orders: sounds like a refreshing at-home shopping and customer experience, yes? That's because it's meant to.

"I see them as kind of a great white shark. You don't really want to mess with them." The words are those of a former manager at Amazon – and she is describing her former employer. It is an apt analogy. Amazon is huge – worth $740bn (£530bn) at Monday night's share price – but it moves fast and is a lethal predator.

In the early days of Amazon, Jeff Bezos instituted a rule: every internal team should be small enough that it can be fed with two pizzas. The goal wasn't to cut down on the catering bill. It was, like almost everything Amazon does, focused on two aims: efficiency and scalability. A smaller team spends less time managing timetables and keeping people up to date, and more time doing what needs to be done. But it's the latter that really matters for Amazon.

The computer on which this article was written is sitting on a laptop stand that tells you everything you need to know about how Amazon does business. At $19.99 (£14.99) a pop, the laptop stand combines everything customers love about Amazon: utility, price and convenience. It's also a total and complete knockoff – of a laptop stand that the San Francisco-based company Rain Design began selling nearly a decade before Amazon decided to make its own. Amazon's innovation with its own version was to replace Rain Design's raindrop logo with its own smiley arrow logo – and cut the price in half. "All Amazon had to do was pick the best one and copy it," said Rachel Greer, a former product manager for Amazon who runs a consulting firm for Amazon vendors.

File photo: Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos laughs as he talks to the media while touring the new Amazon Spheres during the grand opening at Amazon's Seattle headquarters in Seattle, Washington, U.S., January 29, 2018. If a "top-secret" Amazon plan comes to fruition, the online retail giant's next big thing might be home robots. Citing unnamed sources familiar with the company's plans, Bloomberg reports that Amazon is getting serious about building a domestic robot. Think Alexa, but with the ability to move around your home autonomously. The project, codenamed "Vesta" after the Roman goddess of the hearth, home, and family, reportedly kicked off years ago, but has been gaining steam of late.