More On AI and the Hype
I recently published a piece warning retailers to be wary of vendor claims of the wonder of AI. This week I received a vendor white paper and I clipped some examples shown below. The leftmost column is what is clamed for the AI, while the rightmost column is the reality for retailers.
Very few AI projects deliver benefits which outweigh the costs of implementation. Some of these things will never be real. Some will in years to come, at least for as long as we continue to shop in stores. There are good working examples of AI in action, but very few in retail.
Before you commit money to ideas like these, make sure your vendor understands retailing in depth and can describe in detail the answers to how to deal with the real world issues such as these in the table. Make sure your staff are sufficiently skilled too.
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Posted by Brian Hume
5th September 2025
