Retailers are accelerating digital investments to meet rising demands and increasing fulfilment complexity, with a focus on automation across material handling and management software.
“Gen AI applications have slowly been applied by retailers over the last year, with most exploring system support chatbots and customer-focused support tools. More eyes are turning towards agentic AI applications, and more than 40 percent of respondents strongly agree that AI agents can help automate decision-making for tasks such as adjusting inventory levels, re-routing shipments, and triggering automatic re-orders,” said Ryan Wiggin, Senior Analyst.
In addition to software and automation investments, retailers are getting serious about cybersecurity. More than 35% of respondents plan to spend over US$50,000 on IT security within the next year, while OT security spending has shown even stronger growth in recent years due to heightened threat awareness and regulatory mandates.
“Data privacy concerns and difficulty upgrading or integrating with legacy systems are seen as the biggest challenges to improving workflows in retail companies,” said Wiggin. “Providers should ensure strong onboarding and ongoing support with a key focus on data management and security throughout.”
