I had the privilege of representing Resulticks at the Great Indian Retail Summit recently, and what stood out to me were the questions many peers and brand leaders had about artificial intelligence. What will the impact of AI be on the retail industry? How can they capitalize on its potential? Where should they get started?

There is no singular recipe for transforming one’s business in an age of accelerated digitization, especially when there are already so many new channels contending for attention, strategy, and budget. I have, however, put together four lessons that might be of help if you are exploring the best way to introduce AI into your tech stack.

Lesson 1: Be Patient

There is a disconnect between the perceived confidence in AI and the adoption rate of the technology. According to Gartner, 17% of marketing executives use AI extensively, despite 84% believing in its potential for personalization.

In the same vein, some attendees at the summit were hesitant about AI. There were doubts about whether AI is accurate enough to drive segmentation and deliver predictive analytics. Some also struggled to fully get behind the idea that AI can shape and manage holistic customer engagement across touchpoints.

Missing from such concerns is an understanding of the pivotal place data—or more specifically, quality data—occupies in the fusion of AI and marketing automation. Getting data right is hard and takes time, so businesses will have to take into account their specific demands and be realistic about short-term deliverables versus long-term directions when it comes to AI. Fortunately, AI has also been utilized to shorten precisely the ingestion, consolidation, and analysis of customer data for personalization at scale.

Lesson 2: Be Discerning

It is important to be strategic about adding AI to your retail customer engagement process. Hastily thrusting a new AI component to your teck stack can create more disruptions than conveniences.

Before you kick start the AI project, make sure to assess your capabilities, identify your priorities, and zoom out to determine a reasonable transformation timeline. Is your organization digitally mature for extensive AI adoption? What are the biggest gaps that existing AI vendors can address, given your budget? Do you need to upgrade parts of your teck stack to acquire an infrastructure up to the task?

Lesson 3: Be Strategic

It’s important to consider who your customers are, and which AI use cases will bring the most value to them. SMBs can benefit from the efficiencies AI can bring in terms of content generation, segmentation, and campaign creation. Often with less data and personnel at their disposal, these businesses can make use of AI-enabled solutions to explore multichannel and even omnichannel customer engagement without straining themselves.

Larger corporations, on the other hand, can deploy similar use cases, but at obviously larger scales. From in-store guides that support more conversational language to AI-powered shopper assistants, AI has seen widespread adoption among retail’s biggest brands. Another area worthy of exploration might be the Internet of Things, which—when integrated into a unified, omnichannel engagement framework—makes possible real-time enrichment of individual shopper experiences via the power of AI.

Lesson 4: Be Independent

AI is meant to serve us, not the other way around.

While AI is making tasks more efficient, it should not be taking over your job entirely.  You still bring unique perspectives and problem-solving skills to the table that AI cannot replicate.

For example, brands are turning towards premiumization, where they focus on exclusivity and superior quality, as a strategy to attract customers. Paper Boat, renowned for its story-telling approach, modernizes traditional Indian drinks by highlighting high-quality ingredients and traditional preparation methods on its packaging. While AI can assist in ideating these stories, human oversight is still needed to maintain quality and accuracy.

Good things take time, and AI can help you present your stories to get the best results.

If you have questions about the intersection of AI, retail customer engagement, and top-line growth, connect with RESUL today and let us find the answers together.