The Emergence of Artificial Intelligence in Retail

According to market research firm Forrester Research, more than 6% of jobs currently performed by human beings will be taken over by robots in the next five years. We all knew the day was coming when robots would become more intelligent and start replacing human beings at the workplace, especially in jobs that need to follow a set pattern or jobs that are repetitive in nature. But that day seems closer than ever with retailers like Amazon (AMZN) and Wal-Mart (WMT) seemingly on the cusp of using automation on a large scale. For a company like Amazon, automation is nothing new. They already have robots manning their warehouses, and the company has been working for a while testing drone deliveries in the U.K. The U.S. government refused permission for drone testing, so Amazon is doing it across the pond.