The future of retail: trends from NRF 2024

Artificial intelligence is permeating every aspect of retail, from payments to employee training and even checkout processes. Retailers are looking for ways to leverage AI and data to enhance customer experiences, optimize operations, and drive growth. However, they also face challenges to build trustworthy AI models, such as data governance and certification processes.

As the conversation shifts from theoretical to real and practical use cases, change management and adoption will be a key focus for retailers seeking to reap the benefits of integrating AI into their operations.

“Unified commerce" has overtaken "omnichannel" as the buzzword for describing a consistent customer experience across all shopping platforms. The challenge? Unifying customer data across channels and ensuring both external and internal visibility. This requires a flexible, modular, and scalable technology architecture that can support seamless integration and interoperability of various systems and solutions. Retailers who lean into unified commerce experiences can increase customer loyalty, improve operational efficiency, and enhance innovation.

Retailers are recognizing that their employees are their most valuable asset. There's a noticeable shift toward an employee-centric focus through empowering employees and improving morale. Investing in employee well-being and development can boost customer satisfaction, retention, and profitability. The role of technology through the use of AI in employee training has the potential to enhance the customer experience while also improving the employee journey.

With the pace of change retail has experienced post-COVID, automation is a cost-effective game changer in modernizing in-store and digital experiences. Despite high initial costs, automation has the potential to lower costs and improve efficiencies in retail operations like:

• Inventory management 
• Fulfillment
• Delivery
• Checkout
• Fraud and Risk Management
   

Retailers are exploring different types of automation technologies, such as robotics, self-service kiosks, voice assistants, and biometric payments. However, it’s important to also consider customer and employee preferences and expectations when implementing automation solutions.

Despite the allure of AI and automation, having a solid tech stack in place is key. Retailers need to ensure that their core systems and processes are reliable, secure, and compliant to support the integration and adoption of new technologies and solutions.

The key to unlocking the benefits of technologies such as AI lies in a compostable tech stack that offers:

• Flexibility
• Optionality
• Customization
• Scalability
   

Retailers are shifting toward investments in data management, AI, and full-stack integrations that provide seamless SaaS interoperability to enhance insights, forecasting, and digital transformation. However, this involves leveraging AI-driven intelligence and data alongside a united set of principles when applying AI to tech infrastructure.

Innovation should be customer-inspired, but all decisions should be data-driven, with agility and adaptability becoming more important than ever to ultimately improve customer experience.

Visa Acceptance Solutions is committed to being retailers’ company of choice. Our robust ecosystem of technology and payment service providers helps empower retailers to deliver top grade customer experience, boost operational efficiency, and foster innovation.