The top five retail use cases for AI are…

A new survey reveals how and why retailers are leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

The first annual “State of AI in Retail and CPG” survey of more than 400 global industry members from AI technology provider Nvidia reveals that top five current AI use cases among respondents are:

1. Store analytics and insights.
2. Personalized customer recommendations.
3. Adaptive advertising, promotions and pricing.
4. Stockout and inventory management.
5. Conversational AI.

Survey results also showed that e-commerce is the most used channel for AI technology, with 79% of respondents actively participating in AI-enabled e-commerce. Mobile applications also gained traction, with more than half of respondents using mobile AI technology to help bridge the gap between digital and physical shopping experiences.

Other notable findings include:

• A substantial majority (86%) of respondents want to use generative AI to enhance customer experiences. Specific use cases include multimodal shopping advisors for personalized product recommendations; adaptive advertising, promotions and pricing; product tagging and cataloging; identification of similar and complementary products; as well as deployment of brand avatars for automated customer service.
• More than seven-in-10 (72%) respondents using AI experienced a decrease in operating costs.
• Seven-in-10 (69%) respondents reported an increase in annual revenue attributed to AI adoption.
• More than 60% of respondents plan to boost their AI investments in the next 18 months.
• Three-in-10 of respondents say physical stores have the biggest revenue growth opportunity (ranked second behind e-commerce) and brick-and-mortar remains the channel with the most AI use cases for retailers. Specific use cases include providing convenience and personalized customer experience, store analytics, and loss prevention.
• Other areas respondents want to further invest in AI infrastructure to overcome challenges include exploring the potential of the metaverse for consumer engagement and operational efficiency.

Meanwhile, virtually all (99.6%) respondents are experimenting with generative AI technologies in some capacity, according to the Inaugural Consumer Products and Retail Executive Pulse survey of retail and CPG executives from Ernst & Young LLP (EY).