Artificial Intelligence is one of the great allies of business, either very large or very small. For large companies with enormous resources, AI can be decisive in making strategic decisions at a global level thanks to the analysis of huge amounts of Big Data.
For small businesses and retail businesses, this is also true. Whatever the size of a business, AI algorithms are allies to analyze available data, detect trends, obtain more economic benefits and, also, achieve higher levels of sustainability.
It is in this section that more retailers are currently discovering. The first reason to adopt AI algorithms was simply to get more business profit. Now, many are realizing that there are other benefits as important as economic ones, such as sustainability, which is also compatible with the economic part: AI is capable of making decisions that achieve sustainability and increase profits at the same time.
An investigation of PwC suggests that the use of AI to make decisions on areas related to the environment such as agriculture, water, energy, and transportation could add more than $ 5 trillion (yes, with a ‘b’) to the world economy in the next decade.
This is a relatively new concept that highlights the classic misconception that a choice between profitability and sustainability is necessary.
How can this improvement in sustainability be achieved without hurting profits? It can be achieved by measuring the probability of need, demand, and consumption. In this way, AI, together with technologies such as the IoT, can help reduce waste by preventing products from expiring and avoiding retaining products that become superfluous due to seasonal trends.
This also reduces the likelihood of retailers buying inventory that will go to waste and limits the number of trips required to move and store items. All this would imply a direct cost for the company and the environment that, thanks to AI algorithms, is saved.
In these times when we need initiatives and tools to improve global sustainability, take care of the environment and stay competitive, AI is here to provide a tangible way for retailers to start reducing their carbon footprint and their impact on the environment. environment.
Thus, those retailers that ignored the benefits of artificial intelligence to provide profitability to the company have another engine (as important, or more) to change.