Google has been helping businesses of all sizes reach various heights in terms of profits, but the latest trend is in retail intelligence. The company believes that artificial intelligence (AI) can help online retailers boost their revenue.
In an interview with CNBC on Monday, Google Cloud head of retail, Carrie Tharp, explained that the search engine giant helps retail firms "drive their ability" to establish certain goals and achieve these targets through Google A.I.
"We also think that the future of retail is driven by retail intelligence," Tharp pointed out, adding that the company's role in encouraging retail intelligence among business is through AI systems that should improve profit margins.
It is unclear if every service under Google A.I. is available to businesses hosted on the search engine site's cloud hosting unit, Tharp mentioned Kohl's and Home Depot as some of the partners in this particular initiative.
As part of Google's efforts in assisting businesses to run their online retail platforms during hectic days like Cyber Monday, Tharp said AI engineers sit with business team leaders to ensure that their systems can handle orders from multiple consumers.
The idea of having engineers available to help businesses using Google A.I. came around after the search engine giant's 2018 survey on Cyber Monday revealed that 10 percent of companies who joined the shopping festival saw their sites crash.
Most small- and medium-sized e-commerce platforms crash when consumers place orders all at the same time. The role of retail intelligence is to ensure that crashing systems are minimized or brought to a zero scale regardless of how many customers make purchases.
Tharp noted that crashing websites could cost retailers a lot more than they expect at some point. Through proper retail intelligence, businesses can minimize losses and improve profits during critical shopping sprees such as Cyber Monday.
Meanwhile, this year's Cyber Monday is expected to be the biggest yet in the shopping festival's history. According to CNN, Adobe Analytics predicted that this year's big event will post sales over $9.4 billion.
The said figure is a massive 19 percent hike from last year's festivities. Adobe Digital Insights head, Taylor Schreiner, explained that consumers are expected to spend around $14 billion for the holiday season, with shoppers using their smartphones for purchases.
The smartphone purchasing trend has become one of the biggest breakthroughs in online retail. Industry experts believe that e-commerce will continue to transition to a more smartphone-centric structure that allows for the highest level of convenience for shoppers around the world.
Businesses are being urged to adopt retail intelligence to further boost their sales and reduce website-crashing instances.
