Should retailers ramp up investments in AI for employees? – RetailWire

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.