Is artificial intelligence (AI) making the working world better or worse? That was the question explored last week at an interactive symposium hosted by The A.I. Age, a Seattle Times reporting project. AI is seen in workplaces, such as in writing technology used to craft job postings, autonomous floor scrubbers in retail stores and food and service robots in hotels. Yet the impacts of AI on the future of work remains unknown. Experts, including University of Washington public-policy lecturer Akhtar Badshah, co-executive director of the nonprofit United for Respect Andrea Dehlendorf and UW technology law professor Ryan Calo shared their views on the topic during a panel discussion Wednesday evening in downtown Seattle.

The rise of automation has led experts and workers to debate whether robots will steal jobs, augment employees, free them up to do more complex tasks, or some combination thereof. While potential benefits of the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution include more productive work and employees, this technology could also lead to upheaval in the job market, according to a recent report from SmartAsset. And certain states will feel the impact more than others, the report found. The report examined data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and Oxford University, comparing the jobs most likely to be impacted by automation to the number of workers holding those occupations in each state, to determine the vulnerability of each state's working population. The American South faces the most trouble, the report found, with several of those states making the top 10.

For retail IT leaders, it's become difficult to ignore two emerging technology trends: artificial intelligence and augmented reality. Hardly a week goes by without a headline on how retailers can use AI and AR to engage with customers and make their shopping experiences more immersive and personalized. Just last week, clothing chain Zara said it would introduce AR displays in its stores starting in April. Reuters reports that it will show "models wearing selected looks from its ranges when a mobile phone is held up to a sensor within the store or designated shop windows, with customers able to click through to buy the clothes." Before retailers make significant investments in these emerging technologies, they need to ensure that have defined a problem they want to solve with the new tech, retailers and IT experts say.

AI has been identified as a threat to the warehouse and logistics industry, but what about retail workers? A new report from Blue Yonder looks at how AI could support rather than replace human retail workers. A report from the Martin School at the University of Oxford and Citi estimated that, while perhaps unsurprisingly 80 per cent of retail transportation, warehousing and logistics jobs are at risk due to automation and artificial intelligence, 63 per cent of sales positions are also under threat. Uwe Weiss, CEO at Blue Yonder, argues that removing sales staff from the shop floor to be replaced by AI would be the wrong approach for retailers, as they should be enabling their employees to do what they do best, providing friendly, responsive and bespoke customer service, and letting the machines take care of the manual time-consuming processes, such as replenishment, that require analysis of vast quantities of data and keep staff away from delivering good customer service. For decades, large-scale retail companies have used manual processes to anticipate consumer demand, and stock replenishment has often been based on gut feeling, assumptions, existing agreements with wholesalers and expectations that are hard to measure.

This article originally appeared on the Motley Fool. Robots will take jobs formerly done by people, and that will hit the retail space pretty hard. That does not mean an army of robotic workers will eliminate the need for humans entirely. Instead, jobs that can be easily automated will be, according to ZipRecruiter's Chief Economic Adviser Cathy Barrera in an email interview with The Motley Fool. ZipRecruiter, which was launched in 2010, started as a tool to help small businesses distribute job postings affordably.

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This piece follows an earlier story about artificial intelligence in retail. Yesterday, he was your typical helpful retail employee. Tomorrow, he may be John Henry. Henry is the American legend who, with his bare hands, outperformed a steam-powered railroad drill in a contest that pitted man against machine. Today that drill is artificial intelligence, and instead of digging, it's selling. Whether Chad and artificial intelligence (AI) have to compete, however, is a question for retail.

Technology is the future of retail. Digital data, machine learning, cloud-powered analytics and the Internet of Things will separate the wheat from the chaff in tomorrow's retail industry. A recent Sector Insights government report said that retailers will need to embrace the latest technology trends, such as big data, and have the skills to work with digital systems if they are to be successful in the future. The retail industry is on the whole a voracious adopter of modern data-centric technology, aping the manufacturing world by using big data analytics to streamline supply chains, and using smartphone apps and wireless beacons to harvest customer data to deliver better service. However, despite having the technology to collect and access large amounts of digital data, retailers fail to put it to effective use.

Technology is the future of retail. Digital data, machine learning, cloud-powered analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT) will separate the wheat from the chaff in tomorrow's retail industry. A recent Sector Insights government report (PDF) said that retailers will need to embrace the latest technology trends, such as big data, and have the skills to work with digital systems if they are to be successful in the future. The retail industry is on the whole a voracious adopter of modern data-centric technology, aping the manufacturing world by using big data analytics to streamline supply chains, and using smartphone apps and wireless beacons to harvest customer data to deliver better service. However, Robert Hetu, retail research director at analyst house Gartner, noted that, despite having the technology to collect and access large amounts of digital data, retailers fail to put it to effective use.