What: 4 actual examples of how AI is used across retail, spotted by the NRF

Why it is important: AI is a tool, not an outcome. It will not solve problems, but will significantly contribute to easing frictions or speeding up organisational learning processes.

Neiman Marcus uses AI to help sales associates into making additional suggestions completely related to the customers’ preferences, in a scalable way. This works through an AI-powered platform which records order attributes during every purchase (size, colour, pattern, brand…) and combines it with order history, in order to give back to the sales associate customer’s preferences, lifestyle and style preference.

The Yes uses AI to build a store around every user to avoid the one-size-fits-all approach. Thanks to machine learning, each customer will have a different experience during their visit and see a specific product offer.

Furniture brand Wayfair uses AI to ease customer’s searches thanks to a deepen product knowledge. In that manner, customers can find quickly and easily what they are looking for even if they are not able to describe it, and then visualize how the pieces of furniture would sit in their environment.

Amazon uses AI into supply-chain forecasting, demand planning, assortment, allocation and return optimizations. It also helps to define the most optimal packaging. Amazon hopes to reduce additional packaging usage to 15% of all orders within 2030.

AI’s role in retail