Digital transformation, including technologies such as AI and machine learning etc, is a huge

advance in retail management, because it helps us more than just connecting the dots among
data points, it provides us insights which can be derived from analyzing and forming patterns
of these data. This leads to innovations, smart operations, improvements in customer
experiences, and opportunities for growth and revenue.
Retailers worldwide all strive to create shopping experiences that are convenient,
personalized and memorable for their customers, all in hope of attracting a loyal following,
and big data and AI technology is the gateway to provide high quality services and
differentiate your firm from others. Big data and AI help retailers improve demand
forecasting, make pricing decisions and optimize product placement. So as a result,
customers can connect with the right product in the right place at the right time, and with an
appropriate price tag.
Walmart is a classic case of common big data and AI implementation in supply chain
management. As the world’s largest retailer, it comes as no surprise that Walmart has been
investing in cutting-edge technologies for a long time. According to Mr. Srini Venkatesan,
executive vice president at Walmart Global Tech, they have hundreds of their own in-house
data analysts working on supply chain forecasting, optimization and labor/demand planning,
among other things. It is understandably one of their strongest competitive advantages. They
allegate machine learning algorithms to tasks like inventory data organizing, item pricing and
troubleshooting. AI is quickly able to scan and identify any errors or irregularities that could
be human-made and promptly provide a solution. Not only is the AI a big help when it comes
to managing data of such an enormous scale,on the other hand, Walmart’s massive size also
means an equally massive amount of high-quality data, which is quite an advantage when it
comes to leverage machine learning technology.
Always putting their customers first, Walmart proclaims their biggest goal is to figure out
what the customers want and provide it. And to do that, Walmart has emphasized AI on the
supply chain front. In June, 2022, the company announced that it had plans to open four next-
generation fulfillment centers over the next three years. These will be their next contribution
to progressive supply chain management, using robotics and machine learning to speed up
fulfillment. These technologies will soon be implemented to its current regional centers in the
upcoming years. This would help Walmart increase its inventory accuracy and boost its
warehouses’ capacity to receive and transfer products to retail stores.
In addition, AI usage in Walmart’s supply chain has evolved from simply predicting sales
demand to actually predicting consumer demand via cross-platform data, such as Google
searches to TikTok Social feeds. The last two years posed a greater difficulty than expected
due to the unforeseeable nature of the pandemic on such a fundamental scale. To deal with
this problem, Walmart’s tech team invested in AI and ML for substitution logic, figuring out
what products can stand in for the ones that are not in stock. Venkatesan said that this process
can be highly complex and personal since it involves a huge number of variables to which the
human brain cannot process all, for example size, type, brand, price, individual preference
and current inventory. Walmart entrusts this task to deep machine learning AI, since a wrong
choice can negatively impact customer satisfaction and increase costs.. All data are analyzed
in real time to determine the best available substitute. Venkatesan reported that since
deploying AI, customer acceptance of online grocery substitutions has climbed over 95%.

https://venturebeat.com/ai/how-ai-helped-walmart-go-from-700000-to-60-million-items-
online/
https://venturebeat.com/ai/how-ai-helped-walmart-go-from-700000-to-60-million-items-
online/
https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2021/06/24/headline-how-walmart-is-using-a-i-to-
make-smarter-substitutions-in-online-grocery-orders
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/retail/solutions/ai-in-retail.html#:~:text=AI
%20helps%20retailers%20improve%20demand,too%20much%20or%20too%20little.