In This Article:
Artificial intelligence has stirred up retail for years, but has become of particular interest since late 2022, upon the public-facing launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
What started as much of the world’s foray into generative AI has become an obsession with personalization, back-end efficiencies and omnichannel strategy—all powered by technology. But where is retail’s attention headed next, and how can AI realize its full promise with the help of other, less flashy technologies?
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Brendan Witcher, VP and principal analyst for Forrester, hosted a session with Trang To, VP of Omni for Tapestry, Ellen Svanström, chief digital information officer at H&M and Karen Etzkorn, EVP and chief information officer for Qurate Retail Group at the National Retail Federation (NRF) conference in New York City on Monday. The group discussed AI’s current capabilities and where complementary systems could be headed as retailers implement technology-based solutions.
Is generative AI being realized in business?
At last year’s NRF conference, discussions about retailers and brands’ lofty expectations for generative AI dominated the conversation; not all of the use cases leaders expected to implement came to fruition, but many retailers are beginning to see results from the systems they have put in place, both on the customer side and for internal use cases.
Like many other retailers, Tapestry has used generative AI to guide the customer experience on its brands’ sites, helping consumers find products that match their customer persona. But some of the most apparent displays of generative AI’s true impact comes because of its internal implementation. For instance, Tapestry has seen a 40 percent reduction in code and a 15 percent reduction of re-coding among engineers, To said.
And while technology certainly changes corporate employees’ jobs, Tapestry has put the spotlight on what generative AI has done for its in-store associates. As the company works to gather greater insights about how consumers want to shop its brands in physical locations, it has given employees a tool to share observations. Initially Tapestry launched the tool with Coach; it calls it Tell Rexy, a play on the brand’s T-rex mascot.
“That tool aggregates feedback from all of our associates and leverages AI to develop themes for action,” To said. “We’ve collected tens of thousands of pieces of feedback from our…associates.”