The Convenience Leaders Vision Group (CLVG) recently released a Vision Report, "Lead the Future: Transformative AI Strategies,” identifying how successful AI implementation can maximize the benefits of AI while minimizing the risks.

Greg Buzek, president and chief AI officer of IHL Group, discussed the urgency for convenience retailers to adopt AI, along with a strong emphasis on the need for strategic, data-driven approaches to implementing these technologies. Key takeaways for retailers looking to implement or enhance their existing AI include:

• Start smart, scale fast: Retailers should focus on identifying their biggest business needs and prioritizing AI investments accordingly. Smaller retailers with clean data can begin with merchandising and supply chain optimization. Mark Samuels, executive vice president of convenience retailing at Dash In (The Wills Group) said: “One of the things that we’re doing in accounting, as an example, is using AI to sort and process invoices for someone that used to manually do it. As a first step, efficiency is the goal for a lot of companies and not necessarily driving sales.”
• AI runs on smart data: Data quality is important for successful AI implementation. Retailers need to prioritize data cleaning, consolidation and storage solutions. “Earlier this week in [a meeting] with Retail Industry Leaders, RILA, someone there said, as retailers thinking about approaching AI, we really don’t need an AI strategy. The way you should think about it is to have a business strategy and think about how you can leverage AI to help you more effectively execute your business strategy,” said Darren Rebelez, CEO, Casey’s General Stores.
• Automate, don’t replace: The goal of AI implementation should be to enable employees to perform at a higher level, not to replace jobs. Companies should automate tasks that employees dislike to showcase AI’s benefits. Annie St. Romain Gauthier, CFO/Co-CEO at Y-Not Stop - St. Romain Oil shared, “We feel like the better we can get it operating and executing in our operations every day, that’s where we get our edge right now. So that’s where we’re focused.”