Artificial Intelligence

The first fully autonomous drone delivery to a customer home has occurred, and the retailer behind it is not who you would expect.   Leading convenience chain 7-Eleven partnered with independent drone delivery service Flirtey and the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems (NIAS) to complete two deliveries from a store in Reno, Nevada on Sunday, July 10. 7-Eleven merchandise, including hot and cold food items, were loaded into a Flirtey drone delivery container and flown autonomously using precision GPS to a local customer’s house.

It won’t help you find Pikachu, but a new mobile tool from Macy’s will assist shoppers in navigating the store.   The department store retailer is piloting “Macy’s On Call,” a solution that lets in-store customers use their mobile phones to interact with an artificial intelligence (AI) platform powered by IBM Watson. The Satisfi intelligent engagement platform provides the connection between the mobile tool and the Watson platform.  

Wearable technology has a way to go before it becomes mainstream, but perhaps not as far as some observers think.  

Retailers are focused on getting leaner.   That’s according to a new study by Accenture, in which 88% of retailers said they were focused on cost reduction to free up funds necessary to reinvest in growth initiatives.  As for where they are those cost savings, the top three areas were expanding into new geographies (cited by 60%), digital technologies (54%) and enhancing customer experiences (52%).  

Accounts of exactly how it happened differ, but a 300-pound security robot collided with a toddler at a mall in Palo Alto, California.    According to CNN Money, the robot struck and partially ran over a 16-month-old child in the Stanford Shopping Center on Thursday, July 14. The child was not seriously injured.    Mall operator Simon Property Group is investigating.  

Ikea is expanding its renewable energy portfolio with state-of-the-art fuel cell technology.   Based on the success of its pilot installation, Ikea said it plans to install biogas-powered fuel cell systems at four more stores in California.  

The dust is clearing from the aftermath of the second annual Amazon Prime Day, and the industry can now see how well the online sales extravaganza actually performed.  

Everyone loves to talk about pizza, and Pizza Hut is turning that tendency into a consumer touchpoint.