Incisiv, an industry insights firm, and Wynshop, a provider of digital commerce and fulfillment solutions, have revealed the findings from Grocery Doppio’s State of AI in Grocery 2024 Report.
Highlights from this year’s report include:
- Eighty-six percent of grocery C-suite execs say that AI will be a necessity in the future, up from 81 percent in 2023.
- By 2030, grocers are projected to increase spending on AI by 12 times, and 84 percent expect AI to be embedded in most, if not all, of their technologies. However, only 14 percent of grocers have allocated additional dollars to AI in 2024, only 6 percent scaled their AI projects in the last year, and only 16 percent are using AI in multiple business areas.
- Budget availability continues to be the No. 1 challenge for grocers to scale AI (73 percent, up from 71 percent in 2023), followed by technical infrastructure issues (71 percent) and proof of performance/unclear ROI (66 percent).
- Despite a rise from 56-64 percent of grocers who believe that AI can have a “high impact” on customer service, more C-suite grocery execs believe in AI’s ability to impact operational efficiency (71 percent in 2024, up from 53 percent) than AI’s ability to impact customer service (29 percent in 2024, down from 47 percent).
Based on a survey of 233 senior grocery executives and 1,216 shoppers, Grocery Doppio’s State of AI in Grocery 2024 Report draws insights and opinions from senior grocery leaders spanning technology, e-commerce, supply chain, marketing, in-store and senior leadership roles. The research was done in support of the second annual AI in Grocery Digital Discovery Event, a free online event from June 20-21, highlighting the major AI trends shaping the grocery industry.
“The grocery C-suite strongly believes that AI can unlock tremendous value,” said Gaurav Pant, chief insights officer of Incisiv and Grocery Doppio. “However, reality does not meet the hype. It will take time to prove the business case for AI in grocery before we see widespread adoption. ‘Boring’ but high-impact areas will lead the charge.”
Charlie Kaplan, chief product and marketing officer at Wynshop, added, “Getting the right infrastructure in place is critical to implementing AI at scale in grocery. Grocers have improved their data management foundation in recent years, but many still lack the tools to integrate data across channels and then make profitable use of data with AI-based personalization, dynamic pricing, inventory forecasting and other promising initiatives.”
