AI means something different to every retailer—and their level of adoption reflects that range.

• “Right now, retailers sit on a spectrum—from simply being aware that AI exists to being off and running with agentic tools,” said Suzy Monford, CEO at advisory firm Food Sport International, during a recent Grocery Doppio webinar.
• She estimates that about 30% of retailers are still in the discovery and research phase, another 30% are testing AI-driven platforms, and 20% are actively executing agentic AI.

Despite uneven adoption, AI is already proving to be a powerful force in grocery. Here’s how it’s being used today—and where it’s headed next.

AI today: Currently, 93% of grocery C-suite leaders believe AI will be a necessity to compete in the future, up from 81% in 2023, according to Grocery Doppio survey data.

• AI adoption will unlock $153 billion in value by 2030 across the supply chain, store operations, merchandising, and marketing, and more.

While most executives (79%) believe AI will have greater impact on operational efficiency, 21% believe it will also greatly impact the customer experience (CX).

• Weis Markets is focusing on CX, using AI to speed up self-checkout.
• “Over 72% of our store transactions go through self-checkout,” said Greg Zeh, senior vice president and chief information officer at Weis Markets. “And now we’re using video AI for product recognition [which] takes that interaction from five seconds down to a half a second.”

Retailers should focus their AI efforts on where they can create the most value.

“It’s really about where the retailer finds themselves differentiating and how they want to align or enable a consumer to leverage technology in that journey or that relationship with that retailer,” said Zeh.

Where AI could go tomorrow: AI’s next phase is agentic, which can take retailers from insights to action, according to Monford.

“Look at the difference between [generative] AI and agentic AI,” she said. “[Generative] AI produces a lot of results. When you do a query, you’re going to get all the instant research right at your fingertips, and often you’re going to get that wordsmith so it sounds like you wrote it. But agentic AI actually does a job. Agentic AI is about taking action.”

One way agentic AI could reshape the in-store experience is through category management and merchandising.

• “The new generation of agentic AI is going to be able to… see how the customer is responding to your planogram in real time… and that’s the promise,” said Monford.

But with so much buzz around agentic AI, retailers need to approach integration with caution and clarity.

“Everybody and their mother is building an agent today... you have to take the hype out,” said Deepak Jose, head of data and decision intelligence at Niagara Bottling.

It takes two: Despite fears of replacement, industry leaders see AI as an amplifier of human skills.

“The role of data analytics and AI is to enable faster and better decision making… it is about how to augment human intelligence,” said Jose.

AI is most powerful when paired with human insight—together, they drive maximum effectiveness.

• “AI tools can help lead and teach and support merchants’ critical thinking,” said Monford.
• For example, AI-powered heat maps can reveal instances where customers went out of their way to buy a specific product at a higher price.
• But then, “it would take a human to start really thinking about, what does that mean, and what does that indicate? I think [AI and humans] both are mutually supportive,” she said.

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