#retail-ai

#retail-ai

Retailers, especially larger companies, recognize the importance of artificial intelligence and agentic commerce, and plan to make that a reality this year, Srjana Balraj, global head, unified commerce platform at TCS told American Banker. "If you are not visible in the [AI] chat interface, you are going to lose the customer eventually," Balraj said. "The work started last year and two years back based on the maturity of where retailers are.

Reactive personalization is being replaced by predictive intent engines. Instead of waiting for a customer to browse, AI anticipates the customer's next wants based on contextual data like weather, life events, and even local cultural moments. For example, as outdoor searches tick upward in specific regions, retailers surface camping gear. The upside is deeper relevance. As with every trend, there are risks. Here, if the timing is too perfect, the relevance can feel intrusive to the customer.

That's because most top AI companies - like OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthropic, or Meta - operate in a primarily virtual space, processing unfathomably complex rivers of information into more digital information. AI-adjacent companies like Nvidia, Intel, and Oracle focus on providing the physical infrastructure upon which the AI machines function. Then there are the companies that are using digital intelligence to deliver physical results through automation and augmented experiences, like Tesla and Amazon.