The first day of September should have marked the beginning of one of the busiest periods of the year for Jaguar Land Rover. It was a Monday, and the release of new 75 series number plates was expected to produce a surge in demand from eager car buyers. At factories in Solihull and Halewood, as well as at its engine plant in Wolverhampton, staff were expecting to be working flat out. Instead, when the early shift arrived, they were sent home. The production lines have remained idle ever since.

My role is focused on technologies that will allow us to reduce costs, drive sales, and improve customer experience. I am running several transformative development programmes in alignment with the M&S digital first strategy, one of which is the implementation of a natural language solution driven by machine learning and BOT technologies for our store estate. Another is to modernise our contact centres with natural language call steering and voice automated self-service. These projects have been great examples of driving innovation in an established company with great heritage. How and why are M&S using natural language processing?

Artificial intelligence is rumored to be the next global technological revolution. Currently, it appears to have penetrated into various industries across the globe and is expected to soon change how human live, interact, work, and receive services among other benefits. Also, this groundbreaking is proving to be quite useful in carrying out mundane tasks in various companies in a bid to allow human experts to deal with more important jobs. For instance, Mark & Spencer (M&S) is substituting call center staff with an AI-driven chatbot, which is made to rapidly handle customer complaints. For this undertaking, Mark & Spencer will utilize software from various technology companies including Google and Twillo in an effort of automating its calls' routing.

If you've been paying attention to the application of artificial intelligence in retail, you may feel like the buzz around the topic has gone from zero to "arrived" in less than a year. In retail time, even at the speed of the modern consumer, that is incredibly fast. Some of the hype has come from activity around specific use-cases for the application of AI in retail. Predictive analytics / forecasting – This is forecasting with an emphasis on either products, or customers. For products, retailers appear to be focusing on three main areas of opportunity.

Hundreds of industry specialists were recently introduced to APRIL (Automated Processing Robotic Ingredient Loading) at an event organised by automation solutions provider OAL and the University of Lincoln at the UK's National Centre for Food Manufacturing. The session was held to demonstrate to manufacturers what can be achieved using robots to handle ingredients and cook food, so that food manufacturing can become more efficient and safer. "Consumer demand for greater choice and convenience versus the rising cost of food production due to the introduction of the living wage has led food manufacturers to a crossroads," OAL sales and marketing manager Jake Norman told BakeryandSnacks. "These interlinking factors mean the time is now for robotics and automation to deliver flexible food production at the lowest cost." According to Norman, other industries have embraced technology as an alternative to people to great effect.