If you want to be successful in retail, you have to use technology at an early stage and put the customer at the center of all decisions. The digitization and technical progress, especially artificial intelligence (AI), are changing retail market in numerous industrial sectors, including tech, agriculture, studios, product testing, inspection, certification, insurance, and most important, retail. Customers are buying more and more online instead of from traditional stores, having a presence across all relevant sales channels has long been part of everyday life, and innovative business models are becoming increasingly popular. AI enables business models that were barely conceivable just a few years ago. Retail companies should use the changes strategically to get as close as possible to their customers. As a 2019 survey by EY and Microsoft shows, the gap between companies that embrace AI and those that are hesitant is widening.

Video is the format that receives the most engagement, often 10 times more than static content, and the power of using video assets to drive sales is well-proven. The issue is that premium video is really hard to generate, making it the privilege of brands with the luxury of big budgets and long lead times. Capturing professional-quality video is a painful process, requiring a camera and talent to be present, synchronously, on location, with all the associated paraphernalia that comes with it: crew, hair and makeup, agents and so on. A single video can barely be produced at a $10,000 budget. As such, when it comes to marketing tailored to many individual products, target audiences, or regional messages, all refreshed on a frequent basis, formats have been largely restricted to just an image and text.

Retail will increasingly adopt intelligent automation technologies, according to IBM's latest study released Tuesday at the National Retail Federation's 2019 Big Show. The study focuses on the convergence of humans and artificial intelligence (AI) in the retail industry, and specifically how automation can help reduce human error and improve the customer experience. The report surveyed 1,900 retail and consumer product representatives across 23 countries to determine how AI will revolutionize retail. When integrating AI into retail, manufacturers must remain transparent and secure to retain customer loyalty, as people can be wary of automation and other new technologies entering a sphere where it previously didn't exist, the report found. IBM identified the following six ways the retail industry plans on utilizing AI, based on respondents' feedback: "Retailers are increasingly using innovative technologies to offer new ways to shop both online and in-store and provide rewarding careers for employees," Mark Mathews, NRF vice president of research development and industry analysis, said in a Tuesday press release.

In their first guest exclusive with us, Acuvate Software shares the many different ways in which predictive analytics, combined with AI, is changing our industry. Acuvate provides AI and predictive analytics solutions for consumer goods and retail businesses. Their mission is to produce intelligence applications that simplify processes. A retailer can predict the number of footfalls for a given period, but cannot predict where these footfalls are likely to pause in the shop, stop for exploration and for purchase. But, for those retailers who have incorporated predictive analytics and Artificial Intelligence, knowing these gray areas is possible.

A key message I have been focused on driving across the industry is that technology-fueled innovation is transforming retail at an increasing pace. The corollary to this is that innovation moves from'isn't that interesting' to widespread adoption much faster than the vast majority of people in the industry are aware of. Nowhere is this more true than with robotics. Robotic innovation is poised to transform and disrupt retail from several directions - and that's just based on what is happening today. We're seeing companies creating self-navigating robots that cruise store aisles to constantly monitor merchandising, alerting store personnel to out-of-stocks, misplaced products, and other issues.