Artificial Intelligence

Pittsburgh –- Multi-format food, fuel and pharmacy retailer Giant Eagle Inc. is piloting smart devices from Brickstream for capturing and analyzing in-store data at six stores. Brickstream’s hardware and software solutions deliver the equivalent of “clickstream” analytics for the brick-and-mortar world.   

Plug and Play brings together retailers and start-ups who offer specific technology and expertise that can relieve merchants’ pain points. Customer Disruption highlights one of those start-ups in each issue with a brief Q&A. This issue, the spotlight is on Aahlada Chennupati, CEO and co-founder of ProductPlay.   1) What does your company do?  

Bay Shore, N.Y. -- MIA Concessions has deployed advanged digital signage in Miami International Airport’s (MIA)) South Terminal in the form of bilingual digital passenger assistants.   The technology, from Tensator, provides passengers with high-tech virtual shopping consultants and also serves as an advertising vehicle for shops and restaurants to reach high multi-lingual air travelers to Miami.  

Enterprise cloud commerce solutions provider Demandware has upped its predictive analytics game with the acquisition of CQuotient.

Burlington, Mass. -- Demandware Inc., a provider of enterprise cloud commerce solutions, has acquired CQuotient, a cloud personalization provider. The acquisition of CQuotient will accelerate Demandware’s plans to turn the data created across its community of retail brands into actionable insights for business optimization and differentiated consumer shopping experiences.   

Delhaize America’s new CIO is confident the company will be able to drive sales growth by leveraging technology.

Retail technology veteran Michael Laurenti was named chief information officer at Delhaize America and will assume his new responsibilities on November 17. He most recently served as CIO at the privately held 300 unit Belk Department Stores chain. Prior to Belk, he worked at Family Dollar, Linens 'N Things and Toys "R" Us. Laurenti succeeds Deb Dixson who spent four years at Delhaize America and announced her departure earlier this year.

By Dov Cohn

Smart machines, mobile and digital business transformation all weigh heavily in tech research giant Gartner’s top 10 predictions for IT organizations and users in 2015 and beyond.    Here is an overview of Gartner's top 10 trends:     1) By 2018, digital business will require 50% fewer business process workers and 500% more key digital business jobs, compared with traditional models.