The New Retail Playbook: AWS Brings AI and Data into Stores

It is now harder than ever to catch customers’ attention, with one-size-fits-all products replaced by ultra-personalised customer experiences. Today’s retail landscape goes beyond the brick and mortar, trickling into the digital realm to curate an all-encompassing customer journey. This shift is no doubt fueled by artificial intelligence (AI) and other transformative technologies, which have altered the way people shop and interact with brands and products. With AI in the retail industry projected to reach US$62.64 billion by 2034, going online for retailers no longer translates into publishing products on an e-shop, because customers simply expect brands to deliver more.

According to Capgemini, up to 71% consumers now demand generative AI (GenAI) integrated into their shopping experience. However, despite the proliferation of said technology over the past decade, customer satisfaction with AI implementation has in fact gone down from 41% in 2023 to 37% in 2024. In this day and age, ignoring AI would be shortsighted, but it seems that most retailers still lack access to understandable and explainable AI tools, resulting in a detrimental gap between customer expectation and service delivery. 

Named by Gartner as a magic quadrant leader for fourteen consecutive years, AWS is undeniably born from retail and built for retail. Robert Wang, Managing Director of AWS Hong Kong and Taiwan, opened the forum by highlighting AWS's long-standing pedigree in AI, noting that over 750,000 robots now work with Amazon employees to power almost everything. It is clear that the global retail sector has undergone a period of unprecedented change, but with the transformative potential of AI in inventory management, robotics and drone deliveries, there lies the opportunity to adopt transformative technology in streamlining internal operations and maximising external customer services.