Artificial intelligence is a buzzword these days and business units across India are looking to incorporate this machine intelligence into their day-to-day operations to make their businesses more efficient.The Indian retail industry is no different.
The Indian retail industry is leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to better analyze its operations, which is helping it come up with better strategies to improve its business, said Atul Rai, co-founder and CEO of Staqu Technologies Ltd., a company that provides AI-assisted software for security and analytics services.
Staqu Technologies, which has around 100 clients including Raymond's, Starbucks, Cafe Coffee Day and Chayos, offers its AI services through software called Jarvis, which is installed and connected to CCTV cameras, making them “smart.” The cameras upload all text, audio and visual information to the client's cloud, where various AI tools developed by Jarvis can analyze this data.
From tracking criminals for enhanced security to understanding customer trends in a particular retail showroom, the software uses AI to draw the necessary inferences from complex sets of data.
Lai said that through Jarvis, retailers are provided with technology services such as foot traffic analysis, heat map analysis, dwell time analysis and even audio and video analysis tools, which help business managers understand customer preferences, product preferences, over- and under-utilized areas, gender and age-specific trends, he said.
These tools not only help retailers identify their loyal customers and members but also provide them with relevant offers and discounts to keep them engaged. Queue management and demographic analysis are some of the other benefits retailers have gained from using such AI tools.
“These insights are extremely useful for analytics, strategy planning and even advertising purposes,” Atul Rai said. This helps in saving costs and leveraging expenses in a specific way, thereby improving revenue. Using AI, some retailers have seen an increase in operational efficiency by 60 percent, he said.
In one testimony, Raymond said the technology has enabled the company to understand customer preferences and identify changing trends using services such as foot traffic and gender analysis.
According to Lai, the technology is widely used in the clothing and beverage industries. “Compared to e-commerce platforms, offline stores have less detailed data on their operations, so they will benefit the most from this technology,” he said.
Collecting customer data involves aggregating and tracking individuals' data, which could raise privacy concerns. Staqu is seeking approval to collect such complex data for analysis, as well as other regulatory hurdles that come with it, Lai said.
“We don't collect private databases. All data is on the customer's own database, it's not sent to Staqu, it's stored on the customer's cloud,” he said.
Regarding the infringement of customer privacy, Atul said the technology identifies people as objects and tracks their numbers and counts to understand footfall and preference trends. The technology does not store personal information or customers' facial features or expressions. Rai explained that the software automatically blurs faces.
“To curb this, we are one of the few companies that undergo GDPR audits every month. Moreover, we adhere to global compliance regulations,” he said.
The software doesn't identify premium customers based on their financial status. “We combine customer data with sales and mobile numbers,” Lai said. “So when a customer shares their mobile number, we track what they've been buying and offer them discounts on their preferred products,” he added.
“We have various defense systems in place, not just for security purposes, but also to ensure that we do not obtain any personal private information,” Lai said. “We comply with all defense protocols and global privacy standards.”
Staqu, which is also known for providing AI-powered security services to the Ram temple ceremonies and the G20 summit in January, said its software identifies criminals and suspects based on criminal records shared by local authorities.
