More Intelligent Retail Clouds

More data, more interactions with parts of the business, new patterns to leverage in a changing world.

How is Artificial Intelligence Changing the Retail Landscape in Maize

Francis Oyewole heads up Business Development at Aura Vision, a startup focused on integrating AI with retailers’ existing security cameras. We talked with Francis about how Covid-19 has changed the retail landscape and the role AI plays as more stores need to monitor customers’ actions.

How has Covid-19 changed the current retail landscape? And how does the possibility of another pandemic anticipate the future of retail?

Covid-19 has really accelerated digital transformation. There were some retailers who were dragging their heels on becoming more digital within brick and mortar operations. Retailers are starting to inquire and explore the technologies that they possibly should have been using before Covid-19.

That's a big shift towards taking more of the off-line world into a digital space. Data is absolutely massive during this time. And there are a lot of retailers who simply don't have the historical data that they need to be able to predict how things could be going forward. So they're scrambling to get into that position. Brick and mortar stores are disappearing in some sectors, but it seems like using AI and using data could help brick and mortar stores survive. But at the same time this crisis has really highlighted the importance of brick and mortar, not just from an economic standpoint, but also from a social standpoint. People may be in the position where they miss the opportunity to go into a store and buy something. A.I. has already impacted the online shopping experience, it only makes sense for that mindset to be taken into brick and mortar.  ... "