In the age of Amazon domination, competing retail interests need to get smarter and do so quickly. Such was the message at a recent Cowen panel discussion that highlighted how artificial intelligence and its more studious cousin, artificial intelligence / deep learning / machine learning, operate to build and maintain a retail business. The discussion featured three advanced technology providers, each of whom operated at varying stages of the retail cycle. At the top of the list is Foursquare, a firm that is popularly considered for its social media platform that allows people to communicate their location to an audience waiting with bated breath. Foursquare is more than an application that breaks news when John Q. Rando in Peoria, Illinois checks in at Applebee's, there is a technology underneath the application that provides useful intelligence.