The coming of the AI revolution in brick-and-mortar retail
In AI for Retail: A Practical Guide to Modernize Your Retail Business with AI and Automation, Francois Chaubard, AI researcher and retail technology CEO, delivers a practical guide for integrating AI into your brick-and-mortar retail business. In the book, you’ll learn how to make your business more efficient by automating inventory management, supply chain, front-end, merchandising, pricing, loss prevention, e-commerce processes, and more.
The author takes you step by step from no AI Strategy at all to implementing a robust AI playbook that will permeate through your entire organization. In this book, you will learn:
- How AI works, including key terminology and fundamental AI applications in retail
- How AI can be applied to the major functions of retail with detailed P&L analysis of each application
- How to implement an AI strategy across your entire business to double or even triple Free Cash Flow
AI for Retail is the comprehensive, hands-on blueprint for AI adoption that retail managers, executives, founders, entrepreneurs, board members, and other business leaders have been waiting for.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Why You Need This Book as a Retail Leader 1
Section 1 Introduction to the AI Revolution 11
1 How Ai Has Revolutionized Many Other Industries over the Last 20 Years 13
2 The Three Myths of How AI Will Transform Retail 37
3 How AI Will Automate and Optimize Retail 51
4 Level- Setting the AI Doomsday- ism 67
Section 2 AI Theory 75
5 What Is AI? 77
6 From CPUs to GPUs 84
7 Optimization 88
8 Measuring AI Performance 94
9 AI Learning Techniques 100
10 Simulators and AI 111
11 OODA Loops 116
12 Hierarchy of Data Maturity 120
13 A “General Theory for Retail AI” 125
Section 3 Applications of AI in Retail 137
14 The Inefficiencies in Retail Today 139
15 AI for Merchandising 143
16 AI for Inventory, Ordering, and Supply Chain Management 153
17 AI for Replenishment and Labor Management 177
18 AI for Labor Budgets and Scheduling 193
19 AI for E- Commerce and Customer Service 199
20 AI for Warehouse and Distribution Centers 212
21 AI for Checkout 227
22 AI for Pricing and Promotion 254
23 Other AI Use Cases 263
Section 4 Implementation 269
24 Create your “AI Strategy and Road Map” 271
25 Buying vs. Building AI 285
26 How to Run a Proof of Concept Bake- off Effectively 292
27 Transitioning to a Fact- based, Data- driven Culture 303
About the Author 309
Index 311
