Artificial Intelligence

By Tom Bianculli, Senior Director of Emerging Business, Motorola Solutions

The Internet of Things opens the door to new technologies that will have a significant impact on brick-and-mortar stores. Everything and everyone in the store will be connected in real time and retailers will become as connected as their online counterparts. This will create a personalized environment not only for store associates and managers, but also for shoppers.

Retailers are urged to provide a customer experience fit for the “digital natives” of the Millennial generation, who have grown up with constant connectivity and limitless personal choice. These all-important young consumers need to be able to buy any product on earth at any time with any electronic doodad they happen to be surfing the Net with at a given moment, or so it seems.

Ann Arbor, Mich. -- Domino's Pizza, in conjunction with Nuance Communications, is launching voice ordering for its iPhone and Android apps.

SAN FRANCISCO — Big Data personalization provider WibiData has launched WibiRetail, a new software platform designed for retailers to rapidly deploy algorithmically-driven personalized shopping experiences. WibiRetail provides intent-aware commerce applications that use in-the-moment data to determine whether a consumer is shopping for herself, a family member or a partner.

Mooreseville, N.C. — Lowe’s has launched Lowe’s Innovation Lab, with a goal of creating new technology to solve common consumer frustrations while working alongside start-ups, universities, specialized professionals and other companies. The first concept to come out of the lab is the Lowe's Holoroom, a home improvement simulator that applies 3D and augmented reality technologies to provide homeowners an intuitive, immersive experience in their dream rooms.

Schaumburg, Ill. — Motorola Solutions Inc. has released a personal shopping device designed to enable customers to quickly scan items with faster checkouts. The MC18 Personal Shopper is Motorola’s fifth generation personal shopping device and provides shoppers with real-time discount coupons for items they are purchasing and suggestions for complementary merchandise.

Chicago — BrightTag, a provider of real-time, cross-channel marketing technologies, has changed its name to Signal to reflect its focus on helping marketers strengthen the signals between brands and customers. The company also unveiled its Open Data Platform, a patented suite of products designed to help brands make their data and marketing technologies work better together to drive increased engagement, loyalty and conversions.

Irvine, Calif. — PriceSpider, an online retail marketing service provider, is rolling out a re-pricing engine that enables manufacturers and resellers to automatically adjust pricing based on preset or on-the-fly criteria as it pertains to competitive market activity. The PriceSpider re-pricing engine provides the actionable data needed to set rules, manage strategy and optimize pricing activity with visibility into the market.