“So where should retailers start? The initiative needs to come from the top, Choudhary said.
“C-suite executives need to be front and centre when driving AI projects for their organisations. They need to have a vision and plan for enterprise-wide AI strategies before they begin to be implemented,” he said.
Evanna Kearins, VP global field marketing at DataStax, agreed.
“It tends to be the CEO or COO that makes this happen. They are the ones that have to meet their targets, and they have to be able to demonstrate how they will compete with the global e-commerce players out there.”
While AI may garner the most attention at the consumer end, the efforts most likely to get signed off are those with the greatest RoI, which will generally be about automating back-end systems and business processes. These will also be among the most complex to deliver.”