Google: Retailers see promise for generative AI

Most retail decision-makers think generative will have a big impact on their industry.

That's one of the findings of a study commissioned by Google Cloud of 274 U.S. C-suite executives, information technology leads, and business development managers. The majority (81%) of respondents feel urgency to adopt generative AI technologies, with 72% ready to deploy generative AI in the coming year.

Three-quarters of respondents believe generative AI can be practically deployed in their business, and 78% believe generative AI will impact the retail industry in the next 12 months. 

Nearly all (95%) respondents said that generative AI will have an impact on customer experience, and almost half have started investigating or implementing generative AI for customer service automation, with a portion currently piloting (25%) and others already deploying (22%).

In addition, 75% of respondents said they believe generative AI is a key way retailers can reinvent themselves. After initiating generative AI deployments in 2023, 72% of respondents felt satisfied with their performance and outcomes, while about 28% didn't.

Generative AI expected to impact five key areas in 2024

• Customer service automation: Six-in-10 (59%) respondents want to use generative AI to streamline customer service with less human intervention by providing conversation summaries, automating tasks, and ultimately driving conversion. This could include inquiry resolutions, appointment scheduling, and completing transactions.
• Marketing support and product description generation: Roughly half (49%) of respondents want to use generative AI to accelerate product categorization and generate great customer-centric marketing copy.
• Creative assistance: More than four-in-10 (44%) respondents want to use generative AI to empower retail creative teams to curate proprietary images and creative content for campaigns and editorial placements, and also enable one-to-one personalization.
• Conversational commerce: Four-in-10 respondents want to use generative AI to address shopper inquiries with interactive responses beyond product recommendations.
• Store associate knowledge and support: Close to four-in-10 (38%) respondents want to use generative AI to automatically develop internal knowledge articles from existing data sources, such as product documentation, customer support tickets, and employee training materials.

Technical hiring
To continue supporting technology innovation in the coming year, more than half of respondents anticipate an increase in technical positions across several job functions. The leading positions include AI-related product managers and developers (78%), data scientists (77%), machine learning engineers (69%) and prompt engineers (57%). 

Specifically, retail decision makers expect hiring for data scientists across retail is anticipated to increase by 10%.

"Generative AI has come so far in one year, shifting from a barely known concept to an urgently needed answer for numerous business challenges," said Amy Eschliman, managing director, retail industry solutions at Google Cloud. "2023 was a period of experimentation for retailers and many invested in learning where generative AI could have the biggest impact. In 2024, we expect to see retail decision makers put this technology into production to improve shopping experiences, increase productivity, and fuel growth."

This survey was commissioned by Google Cloud and conducted by NewtonX from Oct. 23 to Nov. 14 in both the U.S. and U.K. These results are from 274 U.S. respondents.