'It's the art of the possible': How Walmart and Target are harnessing AI to rocket past the competition

Legacy retailers like Target and Walmart are upping artificial-intelligence efforts to get the desired products into the customer's hands easier, cheaper, and faster. The better-than-expected earnings for some firms -- along with the uneven performance of others -- demonstrates the potential that AI has to transform the retail industry and the treacherous road ahead to get there. Walmart, for instance, is rolling out new technology in thousands of its stores, with the goal of eliminating the "mundane" tasks done by store associates so they can spend more time with customers. "Pretty much everything that we focus on is just making things that you know and do today a lot easier," John Crecelius, Walmart's senior vice president of central operations, told Business Insider. "What makes this exciting and fun is the ecosystem you create. It's the art of the possible when you have several pieces of technology in the same store gathering data and interacting with each other."