Retailers are planning significant investments in advanced digital solutions and warehouse automation to help address supply chain challenges and optimize fulfilment operations. A recent survey by global technology intelligence firm ABI Research found that more than 90% of retailers plan to deploy AI for both decision support and network optimization.
“Gen AI applications have slowly been applied by retailers over the last year, with most exploring system support chatbots and customer-focused support tools. More eyes are turning towards agentic AI applications, and more than 40% of respondents strongly agree that AI agents can help automate decision-making for tasks such as adjusting inventory levels, rerouting shipments and triggering automatic reorders,” said Ryan Wiggin, senior analyst.
In addition to software and automation investments, retailers are getting serious about cybersecurity. More than 35% of respondents plan to spend over $50,000 on information technology (IT) security within the next year, while operational technology (OT) security spending has shown even stronger growth in recent years due to heightened threat awareness and regulatory mandates.
“Data privacy concerns and difficulty upgrading or integrating with legacy systems are seen as the biggest challenges to improving workflows in retail companies,” said Wiggin. “Providers should ensure strong onboarding and ongoing support with a key focus on data management and security throughout.”
