Deciding when to take steps into tech investments is always a matter of timing, but a study from Accenture finds companies across industries are significantly shortchanging their workforces when it comes to empowerment through artificial intelligence (AI). As part of the report, "Reworking the Revolution: Are you ready to compete as intelligent technology meets human ingenuity to create the future workforce?," In retail, Accenture estimates that if stores invest in AI and human-machine collaboration at the same rate as top performing companies, revenues would climb 41 percent by 2022 and employment levels by 10 percent. A barrier is perhaps evident in the finding that only 26 percent of execs feel their workforce is ready for AI adoption. Yet a survey of 14,000 workers as part of the report found 69 percent agreeing that it is important to develop skills to work with intelligent machines and 62 percent believe AI will have a positive impact on their work.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is getting a lot of attention from investors these days and with good reason. It's a technology with the potential to transform everything from transportation to cloud computing. Many companies are betting that AI will influence not just their products and services, but nearly every aspect of their business. Read on to discover nine things you may not have to know about this burgeoning technology. Artificial intelligence is often used as a catch-all to describe computer systems that can learn.

Walmart may be grabbing headlines for its embrace of cutting-edge technologies, but at the heart of those changes are companies like Bossa Nova. The San Francisco-based robotics firm created the robots now roaming the aisles in 50 Walmart locations around the US. Bossa Nova's robots are able to perform tasks such as identifying when items are out of stock, locating incorrect prices, and detecting wrong or missing labels. We spoke to Martin Hitch, chief business officer at Bossa Nova, about the technology behind the machines and how they are being received by shoppers and employees. This article is part of a weekly series paired with our newsletter Clocking In, which covers the impact of technology on the future of work.

Earlier this month, Saks Fifth Avenue President Marc Metrick told CNBC that the luxury retailer didn't need fancy artificial intelligence (AI) to help it succeed in the industry, despite the tectonic shift thrusting every other retailer into reliance on such technologies. "When you think about the online versus the offline experience, we don't need AI in our stores. "We have living, breathing, 4,500 style advisors in our stores. The focus for Saks in the luxury space is really [a] kind of convergence between tech and this living, breathing, selling associate." This is not to say that Saks wants to completely leave technology out of its strategy, but it sure doesn't seem to be embracing the future with open arms either.

Kraft and Pringles are among some of the few. It only takes a couple seconds, but Amazon gave consumers their first listen to Alexa's new voice. The change is part of a 90-second ad running during Sunday's Super Bowl LII, called "Alexa Loses Her Voice." The ad starts with a very concerned Jeff Bezos discovering his prized digital assistant has lost her voice, with the company scrambling to replace it. Alexa's replacements feature some hilarious alternatives, including chef Gordon Ramsey, rapper Cardi B, actress Rebel Wilson, and actor Anthony Hopkins, who is downright creepy as he answers an Amazon Echo Spot owner.

Learn the basics of deep learning - a machine learning technique that uses neural networks to learn and make predictions - through computer vision projects, tutorials, and real world, hands-on exploration with a physical device. AWS DeepLens lets you run deep learning models locally on the camera to analyze and take action on what it sees.

As digital technology advances at lighting speed, many predict that AI, machine learning and automation will remove over half of all retail jobs in the next 20 years. With countless bold statements in the media, this can often appear as a certainty – but are these claims justified? If we look at what is happening today, I doubt it. For sure AI (the capability of a machine to imitate human behaviour), machine learning (computers learning and improving without explicit programming) and automation (the replacement or total elimination of manual tasks) will play a part in re-shaping the future workforce, but will the outcome be as bleak as predicted? The very large data sets generated by online shopping are utilised to drive better personalisation and customer experience through ad placement, search, product recommendations and placement, fraud management and translation.

The startup assault on the humble neighborhood store continues to intensify. First came Bodega, the terribly named, and mostly misguidedstartup with its mission to bring the non-perishable necessities available at the corner store to the masses and "disrupt" the corner store. Now there's Robomart, which wants to bring the groceries, baked goods and prepared foods of the supermarket aisle to your doorstep with a white-labeled service for wholesalers and big box retailers. The culmination of a ten-year vision from founder Ali Ahmed, Robomart is an autonomous grocery store department on wheels. Robomart is the serial entrepreneur's latest startup.

Lingerie brand Cosabella began its initial use of artificial intelligence to enhance its marketing efforts ahead of 2017's Valentine's Day, and saw a sales lift in email-driven" 2016 revenues by more than 60 percent compared to the prior year. Now, as it looks to this year's Valentine's Day and beyond, the Miami-based lingerie brand has more fully integrated AI technology into its CRM system to better connect online and offline shoppers. Cosabella sells its Italian-made wares at its own NYC flagship boutique and through 1,000-plus U.S. physical locations via retail partners like Nordstrom, Macy's, Bloomingdales, Sak's Fifth Ave., among others. About six months ago, Cosabella began working with Snap Style Business, a software company that markets personalization software to retailers. The lingerie brand served as a launch partner for Snap Style's StyleWidget, which enables customers to submit a personalized styling request directly on Cosabella's desktop or mobile site.

Machine learning is one of the hottest topics in the world of retail, and for good reason; the vast power of computers and the cloud offer an unprecedented opportunity to personalize and improve the customer experience from start to finish. Until very recently, machine learning was a useful tool for retailers, but not required. Now, thanks to the ever-increasing wave of customer data at our fingertips, it's quickly become a must-have for any brand that hopes to keep up with the changing demands of consumers and the evolving landscape. If you're a retailer who hasn't immersed yourself in the power that machine learning can add to your business, a new white paper from Precima, "The Machine Learning Retail Revolution," is an excellent place to start. The paper provides a broad introduction to machine learning, before diving deep into several real-world examples of how Precima applies machine learning to improve sales, provide a hyper-personal consumer experience and find efficiencies that lower costs and accelerate delivery of services.