In response to Salesforce’s latest research, a minimum of 180 million persons are using AI-powered tools like ChatGPT on a each day basis. For Salesforce alone, this implies serving up greater than 200 billion AI predictions.

“AI is just not a recent concept and it’s definitely not a recent concept for Salesforce,” said Matt Marcotte, senior vp, industry advisors RCG & MAE at Salesforce on the WWD Apparel & Retail CEO Summit. And because the industry enters wave three of the AI, what’s vital to recollect is that an AI revolution is definitely a knowledge revolution, it’s a skills revolution, an enormous trust revolution and ultimately it needs to be a customer experience revolution. Retailers must sustain.”

With waning consumer loyalty, Marcotte said, Salesforce believes it’s imperative for retailers to make use of AI to create stickiness and increase the share of wallet.

Based on the corporate’s research, 58 percent of retail marketers are using general AI already to supply creative for ads for emails and social media. With this in mind, the corporate’s researchers predicted that $194 billion of online holiday sales can be influenced by a mix of predictive and generative AI. Eighty-eight percent of service decision-makers say they’re already increasing their use of AI of their business, and retailers have already doubled their ability to make use of data to deliver and create personalized experiences.

To assist brands and retailers higher understand the way to successfully utilize generative AI, Michelle Grant, director of industry insights at Salesforce, pointed to key findings gleaned from two recent surveys taken by Salesforce. These insights included consumer interest levels in using generative AI for shopping, where 90 percent of respondents reported interest in using it to get gift ideas. One other 16 percent also said they’re very all in favour of using the technology for wardrobe inspiration, and 14 percent said they’re very all in favour of using it to present beauty recommendations.

Looking specifically at how the style and wonder retail segments are using generative AI, Grant shared that 63 percent of fashion retailers are already using generative AI to generate product recommendations for store associates, while many others are also using it to supply digital shopping assistance and send personalized responses. These tools don’t require human intervention, which importantly frees employees to concentrate on higher-value tasks.

The way in which brands and retailers needs to be fascinated by AI, said Marcotte, is with the importance of a connected ecosystem to get a single source of truth around your customer at each touch point that they’ve. Notably, a recent research report conducted by Forrester for Salesforce checked out multiple retailers and types that had invested within the Salesforce for Retail program, finding a 257 percent ROI over a three-year period.

“We’ve infused predictive AI and generative AI in our entire 360 suites,” Marcotte explained. “Every product you see here has GPT as generative and predictive AI capabilities, this may assist you to maneuver faster and drive increasingly more profitable results. What [Salesforce] is doing is setting these retailers up for fulfillment to make the most of all that AI may give them, like a robust data foundation and the precise forms of systems in place.”