Out of all the many, many technologies and avant-garde tools, the world has developed, none has proven to be quite as important as artificial intelligence technology. Why? Because of the sheer amount of benefits it brings to the table as well as the profound impact it has had on countless industries. Don’t believe it? Perhaps this will help: A 2020 IDC report on spending on artificial intelligence predicts that the global spending on artificial intelligence (AI) will grow to more than $110 billion in 2024.
There is no dearth of potential when it comes to AI. This holds for the whole spectrum of industries, but its applications are rather intriguing in the context of the retail sector. This intrigue is rooted in more than just the sector’s expected annual spending of over $7.3 billion on AI by 2020. You see, AI is helping retailers gain a sharp advantage over the contemporaries in today’s cut-throat market. But there’s much more to AI in retail than that; a recent report found that the retail sector is using AI to not only assist with back-end operations but customer-facing processes as well. We have listed some more ways in which AI is helping retail in its endeavor to improve customer experiences.
- Personalized recommendations: AI solutions can analyze an abundance of data points, such as demographic characteristics, style preferences, etc. to develop profiles and recommendations based on the insights gathered from them. This information is then used to understand what customers are likely to like and offer up relevant suggestions, thus immediately increasing the sales opportunities.
- Virtual trial rooms: Ever since the advent of e-commerce, we shop for a lot of things online. From daily groceries to major household appliances — all of them are now online bought with ease. However, things are a little different when it comes to buying apparel, which can prevent people from engaging with such retailers online. Thankfully, AI can address this challenge too, helping companies set up virtual dressing rooms that allow customers to ‘try out’ apparel online.
- Better shopping experiences: Of course, a better shopping experience is the whole point, isn’t it? Besides the overall assistance, AI lends some focused help specifically to achieve improved experiences. It can fine-tune the process to gather data that can be analyzed to glean insights about virtually every single aspect of the retail operations. From the aforementioned tailored recommendations to fine-tuning marketing campaigns to achieve better results — AI helps companies do that, thus driving high-quality customer experiences throughout their engagement with the establishment.
As data continues to become more and more prevalent in addition to becoming increasingly important, the need for tools and technologies that can help us make good use of this abundance of data in the retail space has become even more pressing. Thankfully, modern-day solutions such as artificial intelligence have ably proven they can leverage data to help retailers deliver substantially improved levels of customer services and experiences. If you too wish to realize these benefits for your company, we recommend you start looking for a trusted vendor for software solutions for retail. And be sure to verify their experience and expertise before signing the dotted line.
