Here is a rewritten version of the content without changing its meaning, retaining the original length, and keeping proper headings and titles:
Retail has always been about people and processes coming together to deliver unique and relevant shopping experiences. With the advent of AI, retailers can now enhance engagement, delight customers, and empower employees to solve problems in ways previously unimaginable. The potential for significant gains from AI investments across retail operations is vast, from increased productivity and faster employee onboarding to improved skills development and streamlined store processes, ultimately leading to happier associates and more satisfied customers.
By leveraging more intuitive, natural interfaces to knowledge and information, retailers can address long-standing challenges in the industry, such as finding and retaining top talent, getting them up to speed quickly, and simplifying store operations to enable associates to focus on delighting and assisting shoppers.
Regardless of the retailer’s size, choosing which AI technologies to prioritize and where to start can be daunting. However, numerous retailers are already using AI to deliver measurable value and real return on investment (ROI). Research indicates that for every $1 invested in generative AI, the ROI is 3.7 times across industries and regions, with top leaders using generative AI realizing significantly higher returns, averaging $10.30, nearly three times more.1
To lay the foundation for AI success, focus on your business strategy and how AI supports your business goals. Identify the business outcomes you aim to achieve and how AI can help you accomplish them.
Here’s a glimpse into how you can start making gains with your AI investments today by focusing on store operations and the frontline.
The frontline is first in line with AI
As the face of retail, frontline workers play a vital role in the shopper experience. Recent research by McKinsey highlights the strong relationship between employee and customer experience, with empowered employees more likely to deliver superior customer service.2 However, many frontline workers spend excessive time searching for information, which is one of the top five reported obstacles to their productivity.3
Generative AI offers significant potential for enhancing frontline productivity and well-being, with evidence suggesting that most frontline workers believe it could help and would be comfortable using AI for administrative tasks.3 By automating routine tasks, generative AI enables associates to engage more with customers, leading to a more stimulating work environment, higher job satisfaction, and helping retailers combat ongoing challenges with employee turnover, seasonal hiring, and training.
On a larger scale, generative AI can also allow retailers to continuously learn and feed insights back into their business processes, driving growth in products, services, and competitive differentiation. Retailers can achieve this by identifying patterns in recurring employee questions to address operational challenges and key gaps in training and store processes.
Here are some other ways retailers are using generative AI today:
- Swedish retailer Lindex developed Lindex Copilot to provide tailored support to store associates and better understand store needs, with generative AI facilitating bidirectional learning.
- MediaMarktSaturn enables associates to have voice conversations with generative AI, accessing product details, services, and warranties while engaged with in-store customers, maximizing conversion and increasing customer satisfaction.
- Store associates at gourmet chocolatier Venchi use detailed product knowledge and customer insights to address diverse chocolate preferences, achieving a customer satisfaction score of 4.9 out of 5.
While generative AI technologies are still relatively new, these examples demonstrate what’s possible and help retailers build an AI foundation for more powerful capabilities emerging with agentic AI.
Agents are revolutionizing retail operations
Investing in generative AI is crucial for retailers seeking to reinvent customer engagement, empower store leadership and employees, and stay competitive, with agents now offering unprecedented opportunities.
Agents utilize AI to automate and execute business processes, working alongside or on behalf of individuals, teams, or organizations. Retailers can leverage agents to help teams work more efficiently and effectively, providing faster access to information to better support customers and increase productivity.
Agents vary in complexity and capabilities depending on the need, helping frontline workers with tasks such as quickly surfacing real-time product information, store policies, and procedures, and supporting Q&A or troubleshooting. Agents can also operate independently to dynamically plan, orchestrate other agents, and learn to improve over time.
Find in-the-moment answers fast
One important way to derive business value from agents is to help store associates find information about company policies or procedures when a customer is waiting for an answer.
SharePoint agents can assist store associates in finding quick answers from internal company sources in seconds using natural language, simply asking what they’re looking for on their tablet or mobile device.
Copilot Chat empowers retailers to get started on their AI journey today, including querying the public web for free. Retailers can also build custom agents using Copilot Studio and SharePoint agents, enabling access to retail systems and documents on SharePoint.
Store Operations Agent is a pre-built agent available on Copilot Studio, allowing retailers to get started quickly with a pre-built solution that acts as an “associate” to the store associate. With this agent, retail employees can access data from LOB systems, store policies, and procedures, and raise incidents for quick resolution.
Using Store Operations Agent, employees at leading Nordic retailer Kappahl can quickly and securely surface product information, store policies, and procedures, increasing store associate productivity and upleveling the shopping experience for customers.
A new era of retail fueled by AI, powered by people
The range of potential gains with AI extends across retail operations, from people to processes to customers, helping make retail more human at every step. From delighting shoppers to supporting associates, AI can boost store operations efficiency, creating an environment where both shoppers and workers thrive.
Savings achieved using AI can be reinvested to create a better employee experience, fostering a work environment where employees are enthusiastic ambassadors of the brand, bringing the life of the store to customers every day.
Microsoft is the proven leader for AI transformation, with the full technology stack and portfolio to help retail and consumer goods organizations power their business with AI. Microsoft can help assess your agent environment, ideate on agent use cases, and establish success criteria for evaluating ROI.
Learn more
Learn more about how forward-thinking companies are driving ROI with Microsoft 365 Copilot and agents, illuminating the path ahead for every organization.
Microsoft Cloud for Retail
Connect your customers and your data
2 How retailers can build and retain a strong frontline workforce in 2024.
3 Work Trend Index: Will AI Fix Work?
