2024 will be a year of innovation in retail and AI is at the forefront. AI is helping retailers increase operational efficiency and enhance customer and employee experiences. Dell Technologies, along with its partner ecosystem is helping retailers enhance those experiences, streamline operations and drive growth, positioning retailers with solutions that help drive speed to innovation that creates long-term value.
AI will be a game changer for retailers
Michael Dell recently talked about the superpowers AI will unleash for organizations. He said, “If you’re not applying AI across your organization and thinking deeply about reinvention, you’re already behind.” In retail, AI has been used for years; in computer vision use cases, to improve supply chain efficiencies, or even to help recommend products to customers. New capabilities like Generative AI will not only help with customer experience, but can enhance internal operations, marketing initiatives or customer support and engagement. Data Management is key and will require retailers to have a strategy for accessing data locked in disparate systems.
AI will have a variety of capabilities
At NRF 2024, Dell Technologies hosted a “Big Idea” session focused on responsible use of AI in retail. Traditional forms of AI are important to provide insights that can be leveraged across broader use of Generative AI models. Using Computer Vision as an example, we can see customer traffic patterns, identify potential risks, reduce loss and improve frictionless shopping. Coupling data from computer vision with inventory can help improve stocking priorities. Using digital twins can help improve store layout and model shopper experiences without making significant changes. Generative AI can leverage all these data sources to help automate tasks for store management and improve training and service response for employees, thus improving shopping experiences.
AI will require the Edge to deliver value for retailers
Retailers require a wide breadth of technology solutions and services to support Retail workloads from front-end to back of store, and from the store to the distribution center to corporate. They need flexibility to deploy retail capabilities their way, from the edge to the cloud. But is there a simpler way to manage the vast assets at the edge?
Last year Dell Technologies released our NativeEdge platform to manage and orchestrate edge capabilities. This platform centralizes edge operations and streamlines edge infrastructure management. With the industry’s broadest portfolio of edge infrastructure hardware and industry-leading secure supply chain, Dell Technologies can digitally sign and certify hardware in the factory. This enables automated deployment and configuration of the edge infrastructure managed by NativeEdge, while ensuring a zero-trust chain of custody. Built on an open design, Dell NativeEdge offers retailers the flexibility to choose the ISV applications and multicloud environments for chosen edge application workloads. Organizations can leverage blueprints to centrally and consistently deploy containerized or virtualized applications.
Connecting with Dell Technologies retail experts
No matter where you are in your AI transformational journey, we look forward to discussing how retail organizations can deliver on the promise of creating better customer and employee experiences.
Learn more at DellTechnologies.com/Retail. You can also contact our sales teams directly and follow the conversation using the hashtag #EmpoweringRetailEvolution on social media.
