Artificial Intelligence at Work, Coming to a Retailer Near You …

Wall Street Journal as well as a number of prominent UK newspapers have recently been contemplating the use of algorithms and AI when determining prices, and thus A2i Systems has been mentioned in a number of articles. See them here: Wall Street Journal, The Daily Mail, The Sun and The Telegraph.A2I Systems has built a highly focused, market leading business in the fuel industry, helping a range of leading Oil Companies and Gas Stations in Europe set the price at the pump at any time. Intelligently, that is, based upon reading of real-time patterns in vast amounts of dynamic sales data and feeds of prices and price-changes at competing gas-stations in the area. This system helps increase sales at optimum prices at anytime with huge profit impact. At its core, this is a win-win for the business owner and the consumer as well. The task at hand, however, is to explain to consumers that this is not bad news. It just means that the price – high or low – is right based upon market conditions at any time. As a consumer, you can choose to ignore this or take a more activistic approach, downloading apps that tell you where the prices are best right now and go bargain hunting.But there is more. Don’t be surprised if in the near future, this will spread to your local grocery store as well. Think about it. The price-tags at the shelf are increasingly digital, yet “dumb”. Grocers dump tonnes of food every hour, simply because it wasn’t sold in time. Simply because the human factor is a barrier. There is not enough staff to keep an eye on every item. With artificial intelligence, this can happen intelligently and without much human interaction. Very much the same way it has happened with fuel prices at the pump. Last but not least, this kind of dynamic discounting of “must sell” groceries will also remove the pressure to discount branded products that do not have an end date anytime soon. Again – a win-win for business and the consumer.