Grocery in the era of AI: Takeaways from GroceryShop 2023

By Justin Padley, Product Marketing Manager, WW Retail, Microsoft

October 17, 2023

Content type
Thought leadership

Thank you to everyone who joined us at GroceryShop 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada. We were thrilled to be part of the biggest grocery industry event of the year, bringing together over 4,000 stakeholders from across the grocery and consumer goods worlds. At this year’s event, we shone a bright light on the current state (and the potential) of generative AI, key topics for organizations to consider as they approach AI transformation, and what Microsoft is doing to ensure our technology future remains bright through responsible AI practices. Across multiple aspects of the event, we focused on answering practical questions on topics like AI prioritization and workforce readiness, as well as blue sky opportunities for customers embarking on or considering AI transformation.

GroceryShop keynote session—Satish Thomas, Corporate Vice President Microsoft Industry Clouds, headlined a keynote panel, Generative AI Tools for Grocery & CPG, in which he highlighted some of the many ways customers are leveraging Microsoft generative AI today to run smarter stores and supply chains while deepening their customer engagements through personalization. The session opened with insights on how retailers and brands can identify and prioritize applications of generative AI that will provide the most business value to their organizations, and the importance of choosing technology partners who will ensure compliance with the highest data privacy standards. The panel conversation that followed featured founders and executives of startups Omneky, Viable, and see6 discussing how AI can power more efficient marketing, drive better shopper engagement, and deliver better experiences for shoppers.

Satish Thomas sitting in a chair speaking.

Microsoft Innovation Forum luncheon: Generative AI and the future of grocery

On Wednesday, September 20, 2023, the Microsoft Cloud for Retail team staged an exclusive thought leadership luncheon at the House of Blues atop the Mandalay Bay Resort for select senior business development managers (BDMs) from key grocery and consumer goods brands. The event featured an educational session delivered by Mandy Lin, Senior Director, Product Marketing for Retail, Consumer Goods, Manufacturing, and Mobility Industries, in conversation with master-of-ceremonies Vic Miles. Mandy offered customers a frank and intimate look at the state of generative AI—broadly and in the grocery sector specifically. She then took customers through some of the ways brands are seeing impact from AI implementations today, as well as key considerations they should be making as they roadmap their own AI transformations. The session ended with a discussion of the Microsoft commitment to responsible AI.

Next, Vic was joined by Rasmus Hyltegård, Senior Director and Global Data and AI CoE Lead at Accenture-Avanade, for a lively fireside chat discussion about AI transformation from the perspective of an experienced global systems integrator (GSI). Audience members studiously absorbed Rasmus’s wisdom on, among other topics:

AI use case prioritization
Generative AI safety guardrails
The impact of AI on the workforce
How to think about AI-readiness

Partners showcased at the Microsoft booth

We also showcased innovative AI-focused Pegasus partners from our Microsoft for Startups program—a collection of groundbreaking companies operating at the cutting-edge of AI solutioning for the grocery sector. The 10 startups exhibited their solutions in three categories: Intelligent Store, Robotics and Automation, and Data and AI. For more about some of our showcase partners at GroceryShop 2023, read this blog from ShiSh Shridhar and view the videos about each partner and their solutions.

Harnessing the power of AI with Microsoft

Whether you were able to join us in Las Vegas or not, you’re probably aware that AI is a hot topic in the grocery world. Grocery touches most people’s lives and holds a unique position of trust in many communities. We’re energized to be playing a role in shaping the future of this industry. Today, our data-gathering and analytics tools are already helping our customers uncover actionable insights in their data. Many of those insights have been hiding in plain sight, waiting for the right technology to make them visible and legible.

Microsoft ai solutions

Explore solutions

But retail is about more than data. Groundbreaking Microsoft AI solutions are driving value for grocery retailers across the product journey—from product development and supply chain to marketing and customer care. Our generative AI tools are helping product teams turbocharge ideation and development cycles, shortening time-to-market and enabling nimble response to market shifts. Marketing teams are delighting in an unprecedented opportunity to hyper-personalize their campaigns through cutting-edge customer outreach tools. Our Microsoft Dynamics 365 suite of offerings is helping retailers build resiliency into their operations and maintain continuity through dynamic, AI-powered supply chains that can intelligently adjust in the face of disruption. Customer service inquiries used to be an expensive and time-consuming process; today, retailers are leveraging our AI-powered conversational chat to deliver context-rich customer care experiences in a fraction of the time. Bing Chat Enterprise is helping many of those same customers find internal productivity gains by intelligently and securely surfacing the information their teams need when they need it. And we maintain a strong focus on empowering the store associate with intuitive tools for task and shift-management, product recommendation, incident reporting, and more.

This video illustrates how a grocer can harness the power of generative AI with the help of Microsoft Cloud for Retail. The AI-powered assistant, Alice, generates personalized meal plans, recipes, and detailed shopping lists, taking the decision making and logistical planning off the customer’s shoulder.

We’re excited about what we’re accomplishing with our partners and customers in the retail world. For more information on the ways Microsoft can help your retail business achieve more with insightful, intuitive AI tools, click the banner below.