Excitement about artificial intelligence (AI) in retail is high, yet, there remains uncertainty regarding where best to apply AI in the retail value chain, and the ROI of such investment. This paper shows how retailers are currently applying AI technologies across the different stages of the value chain. However, many of these narrow applications can be extended to other activities. We show that some AI technologies can serve multiple purposes across the retail value chain, and use a job-to-be-done approach to classify all AI activities in the value chain into four categories: knowledge and insight management, inventory management, operations optimization and customer engagement. An AI-enabled retail value chain therefore moves away from a linear and siloed approach to the value chain, to a real-time iterative approach based on knowledge management: An enhanced AI-enabled retail value chain is proposed. Using this framework, retailers can prioritize their investment in AI, or diversify their current application of AI across the value chain.
