Edge AI in Retail: Transforming Customer Experiences and Driving Sales

As Co-Founder and COO of a startup that is revolutionizing device management for edge devices, I’ve met with dozens of customers across the retail industry who want to leverage edge AI to transform their customer’s experience and, ultimately, drive greater sales and customer satisfaction. While still in its infancy, edge AI has the potential to transform the retail industry by creating exceptional customer experiences, predicting demand for products, providing enhanced customer support, and reducing operating costs. 

Edge AI Creates Exceptional Customer Experiences 

Just think about all the data a given edge device collects: what a customer has purchased (and when), what they have returned, the payment method, and even the potential for facial recognition. By analyzing this data with AI, you can better predict customer behavior patterns and preferences. This means that retail institutions can deliver personal recommendations and build high-impact loyalty programs that will increase brand commitment and sales. 

For example, at Esper, we have a customer in the restaurant industry who is in the early stages of leveraging the insights from their edge devices to build a brand loyalty program through facial recognition and purchasing data. They plan to use this data to offer personalized recommendations on what to order, along with suggestions, discounts, and limited time offers. While this is a restaurant-specific example, this use case could easily be applied to a wide range of retail environments.     

Edge AI Helps Retail Better Predict Demand for Products 

Once again, it comes back to all the data available on edge devices. Imagine taking this data and pairing it with a given store’s data that shows historical sales trends and even pairs that with data from outside sources, like the weather or local events. To take it one step further, what if this data was paired with social media trends? By leveraging AI, you can glean powerful insights into the future demand for retail products. This gives companies a competitive advantage by optimizing inventory levels with what customers are most likely to buy, capitalizing on trends, and increasing sales. Managing Inventory across retail stores and e-commerce is one of the biggest challenges for retailers globally.        

Edge AI Provides Customers with Better Support 

Edge AI is a powerful tool that provides customers with enhanced support. By leveraging small language models packaged for devices, chatbots and virtual assistants can provide support to customers by answering their questions quickly and accurately. One simple example is wayfinding kiosks — customers can answer a few questions about what they’re looking for and get an instant answer on the available options and where to find them. In that case, a chatbot is a cost-effective way to help the customer find exactly what they’re looking for. This is the same experience many have experienced on support websites, but now on devices.. 

Edge AI Can Reduce Theft and Operating Costs 

One of the biggest challenges in retail is theft detection and inventory management. By tagging your products and apparel with RFID chips, you can connect paid products to products leaving the warehouse. Leading RFID players like Zebra have built fixed scanners that can detect products leaving a warehouse or store instantaneously. Using AI on the cloud to quickly analyze active inventory across stores and warehouses providing accurate predictions to the warehouse team to fulfill any customer demand. This is a good example of a hybrid deployment that uses AI on the edge for instant processing (product detection) and cloud AI for broader, company-wide data processing.

Similarly, with AI integrated into device management, retail business owners can focus on running their business and more strategic initiatives that will drive greater revenue. Additionally, by processing data directly on devices, businesses eliminate the need for additional cloud computing resources, saving companies from the rapidly escalating costs associated with traditional AI’s reliance on cloud infrastructure. 

One thing is certain: edge AI is here, and companies looking to gain more of a competitive edge should look at leveraging AI to create exceptional experiences for their customers that will lead to greater profit and customer value. If you’re in the retail industry and interested in learning more about how Edge AI can help enhance your business, look no further than Esper. Get in touch with us today to learn about how we can help take your devices to the next level.