As 2016 gets underway, retailers must be well past the point of retail-as-usual. We're in an industry in transition, and, as such, I'd like to share some transformative trends that innovators will leverage to shape customer engagement in 2016. Predictive Analytics And Machine Learning Predictive analytics aren't new -- remember a few years back when Target used predictive analytics to promote pregnancy products to a young teenage woman whose parents didn't know she was pregnant? Predictive data -- and the means retailers use to analyze it -- has matured, and retailers can rely on the analytics to avoid markdowns and out-of-stocks as well as optimize prices and purchase quantities.

Professional stylists do the job for them and the personal shopping service ships the new clothes to their door. That combo is behind the success at Stitch Fix, a San Francisco-based online subscription and shopping service founded in 2011. "I think it's the single most salient aspect of our company," said Eric Colson, chief algorithms officer at Stitch Fix. "Our business is getting relevant things into the hands of our customers. This is the one thing we're going to be best in the world at. We couldn't do this with machines alone. We couldn't do this with humans alone. We're just trying to get them to combine their powers."

GWYN is based on the Fluid Expert Personal Shopper (XPS) software platform, powered by IBM Watson. She is a gift concierge that intuitively guides customers through their shopping experience to help them select the perfect gift from 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc., including 1-800-Flowers.com,

Professional stylists do the job for them and the personal shopping service ships the new clothes to their door. That combo is behind the success at Stitch Fix, a San Francisco-based online subscription and shopping service founded in 2011. "I think it's the single most salient aspect of our company," said Eric Colson, chief algorithms officer at Stitch Fix. "Our business is getting relevant things into the hands of our customers. This is the one thing we're going to be best in the world at. We couldn't do this with machines alone. We couldn't do this with humans alone. We're just trying to get them to combine their powers."

Amazon is one of the best-known examples of machine learning in action, as anyone who has perused their online store is sure to know. The recommended products shown once you log in are based on your unique purchasing and browsing history, and have been proven effective over the many years of its implementation. This type of machine learning technology also helps Amazon predict and forecast demand, thereby informing supply decisions to prepare for any given increases and wanes. Companies like Amazon have access to vast quantities of data that hold immense potential for not only estimating supply/demand, but for wider business decisions as well. By automating the intelligent analysis of huge sets of data, machine learning technology offers retailers a faster, easier and more accurate method of forecasting and planning.

The most recent development in hearables comes courtesy of giant tech company Microsoft. Still in its early development stages, the Cortana device, known as Clip, has been targeted for release in 2016. This will be a wearable aimed at women on the go and could potentially be designed as a piece of jewelry. The prototype is whispered to be ready by end of 2015. Microsoft s objective is to design a voice activated hearable device that will allow the wearer to hear messages and also interact with a virtual assistant.

Bossa Nova Robotics, a company specializing in building robotic technology for retailers, has raised 14 million to expedite the rollout of its robots in stores. Founded out of Pittsburgh, with offices in San Francisco as well, Bossa Nova has been developing its robot technology over the past few years, setting out to serve retailers through automation and analytics. Its machines analyze stock on shelves and collect data to optimize inventory, with fully autonomous robots unleashed in stores among shoppers. The company says it is now testing its "retail robots" with "five of the world's leading retail chains," though it wouldn't divulge any names. What we're effectively talking about here is automating a task that would ordinarily be carried out by humans, with a view toward improving efficiency and productivity and cutting costs.

Everybody wants to look beautiful. We all like to be well dressed and keep up with fashion trends, but most times this is not possible. We are constrained by time, money and the skill to put together trendy outfits. The problem gets compounded when we go shopping online. Every store has 1000's of items in each category.

Do you remember what it was like the first time you got your hands on an iPhone? When you realized that all the things that you used to have to do on separate devices now could be accomplished on one single device? Well, the minds behind LogicBlox would like you to feel the same way about its foundational technology that collapses multiple technology stacks into a unified smart database environment that aims to enable enterprises to create sophisticated and easily iterated applications in one place. Transaction and analytics co-exist in the platform, with the system utilizing a single declarative language with extensions – such as Machine Learning capabilities and statistical relational models – to support prescriptive and predictive analytics. Users can leverage LogicBlox' full-blown database functionality to train Machine Learning models, for use in solving forecasting or optimization problems, for instance.

Amazon Inc. (AMZN) is on a roll. The world's biggest online retailer blew away analyst expecations Thursday with a 513 million profit, its fourth straight profitable quarter, sending its stock up nearly 12 percent after hours on the Nasdaq. The profit number for the first quarter of 2016 swung from a net loss of 57 million in the same quarter last year and nearly doubled an estimate of 272.6 million, according to analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. The e-commerce giant posted 29.13 billion in revenue, up by 28 percent from 22.7 billion a year ago, driven by growth in its product sales and cloud computing businesses. Those figures beat analyst expectations of 27.9 billion in revenue.