News

Report: AI taking deeper root but greater retail opportunities ahead

January 9, 2019

Artificial intelligence is gaining healthy ground, with 28 percent of retailers tapping the technology compared to 17 percent in 2017, but there are still some big opportunities ahead.

In fact, according to a Capgemini Research Institute global study, AI became a retail reality in 2018, with most retailers using it for sales and marketing efforts.

Capgemini calculates a $300 billion-plus opportunity for retailers able to scale and expand the scope of existing deployments, yet just 1 percent of use cases by retailers have achieved this level of deployment today, noted a press release.

The study, "Retail superstars: How unleashing AI across functions offers a multi-billion dollar opportunity," surveyed 400 global retailers implementing AI use cases at different stages of maturity.

Top insights from the report include:

• Seventy one percent of retailers say AI is creating jobs today, and 75 percent stated AI has not replaced any jobs in their organization so far.
• AI's impact: The report finds that 98 percent of respondents using AI in customer-facing functions expect the number of customer complaints to reduce by up to 15 percent.

"For global retailers, it appears reality has kicked in regarding AI, both in terms of what the technology can achieve and what they need to do to get there. Of course, deploying and scaling will be the next big objective, but retailers should be wary not to chase ROI figures without also considering the customer experience," said Kees Jacobs, vice president, global consumer products and retail sector at Capgemini in the release.