AI Powered Supply Chains

Retail supply chains have spent decades playing defense. Reacting to stockouts, scrambling through peak seasons, patching problems after the fact. AI is ending that era. In this episode of Retail Reality Check, IHL Group breaks down how the shift from reactive to predictive supply chain management is generating real, measurable results for retailers across grocery, beauty, furniture, foodservice, and global e-commerce.From Albertsons reporting a 10% increase in basket size using Google Cloud's Conversational Commerce AI, to Biyoute Trading maintaining 98% on-shelf availability through Chinese New Year using RELEX Solutions , the proof points are stacking up fast. This episode covers four segments: the predictive supply chain revolution, AI in customer experience, smarter store operations, and the state of unified omnichannel commerce.The episode also previews IHL Group's upcoming webinar, "The CFO's Guide to Visual Intelligence," scheduled for May 19th at 11:00 AM Eastern , on treating loss prevention technology as an EBITDA driver rather than a security cost.How Albertsons achieved a 10% increase in basket size using AI-powered search built on Google Cloud's Conversational Commerce agent and OpenAI How Biyoute Trading hit 98% on-shelf availability during Chinese New Year using RELEX Solutions Why RELEX Solutions is becoming a universal platform across grocers, beauty retailers, beverage distributors, and furniture chains How Macy's built and launched the "Ask Macy's" AI shopping concierge in just four weeks using Google Cloud's Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience How Ann Summers cut staff safety incidents by 42% using body-worn cameras from Reveal Media Why Sobeys is investing $51 million in electronic shelf labels across 300-350 stores, while Walmart has already deployed them in roughly 2,300 U.S. locations How Dooney & Burke's platform migration from Salesforce Commerce Cloud to Shopify illustrates the unified commerce shift happening across retail 0:00 — Introduction: The shift from reactive to predictive supply chains0:22 — Webinar preview: "The CFO's Guide to Visual Intelligence," May 19th0:38 — Episode roadmap: predictive revolution, customer experience, store ops, e-commerce0:55 — The predictive revolution: Why AI is putting retailers on offense1:12 — Albertsons: 10% basket size increase with Google Cloud AI search and OpenAI assistant1:54 — CEO Susan Morris on the Albertsons step-change vision2:13 — RELEX Solutions and the global supply chain movement2:35 — Biyoute Trading: 98% on-shelf availability during Chinese New Year2:56 — RELEX across retail segments: Douglas, Forever Cheese, GEPP/PepsiCo bottler, POCO3:17 — Lightning Round 1: AI in customer experience3:34 — Macy's "Ask Macy's" concierge built in four weeks with Gemini Enterprise3:55 — Little Caesars ChatGPT ordering and Dairy Queen voice AI in the drive-thru4:15 — Lightning Round 2: Smarter store operations4:15 — Sobeys' $51M electronic shelf label rollout; Walmart's 2,300-store deployment4:38 — Eagle Stop automated fuel pricing; Heron Foods wireless headsets; Ann Summers body cams5:00 — Lightning Round 3: Omnichannel and e-commerce5:21 — Bauhaus shipping 750,000 orders from stores using nShift5:21 — Dooney & Burke migrating from Salesforce to Shopify5:39 — Jenni Kayne launching DTC shipping to 18 countries5:39 — Big picture takeaway: AI is no longer optional in retail6:17 — Visit ihlservices.com for the full narrative and 40+ case studiesIHL Group Resources:Full newsletter: ihlservices.comWebinar: "The CFO's Guide to Visual Intelligence," May 19th, 11:00 AM Eastern