AI: An Inevitable Technological Revolution

History teaches us that every technological revolution disrupts our societies. Writing, the steam engine, the internet… all these advances radically changed the way we live and work. Today, AI is transforming cognitive work. It allows us to automate complex tasks, write content, predict trends, and even optimize entire processes with just a few clicks.

In retail, a first technological wave—the rise of e-commerce—disrupted consumer habits. The grocery sector, long spared, was forced to speed up its digital transition with the pandemic. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not only young people adopting these new practices: at OneTrip, we’ve noticed that older adults are among the most loyal customers of grocery delivery services.

AI: Threat or Opportunity for Local Grocery Stores?

Like any technology, AI can be seen as a risk or an opportunity. Its impact depends on how it is used. Here are some key transformations it brings to the sector:

1. Acceleration of Digital Transformation

With optical recognition and language processing, it is now possible to digitize a catalog of thousands of products in a few hours. This allows grocers to quickly upload their inventory and take advantage of the visibility offered by the web.

2. Improved Customer Experience

AI enables the analysis of consumer preferences and the provision of personalized recommendations, such as recipes tailored to their tastes. Customers often struggle with inspiration when it’s time to cook, and you could have an AI agent suggest innovative meal ideas based on the products in their cart or the season. This type of AI makes the shopping experience more intuitive and engaging.

3. Marketing and Customer Relations Assistance

An AI assistant can answer customers’ questions on your behalf, generate social media posts, and write blog articles or newsletters, all while respecting the grocery store's brand identity. This allows SMEs to compete with large brands without having to invest heavily in marketing agencies.

4. Optimization of Operations and Inventory

AI can analyze consumption trends and predict demand based on sales history, seasons, or economic events. This helps prevent stockouts or excess inventory, thereby reducing waste.

Moreover, some systems allow real-time inventory tracking and dynamic price adjustments based on supply and demand. Imagine a grocery store where products are automatically rated based on nutritional, environmental, or composition criteria, simplifying the work for managers.

5. Access to Funding Through the Automation of Administrative Tasks

We know that financing is often the lifeblood of any business. When submitting a funding request, you often face a mountain of administrative tasks. These long and complex procedures can quickly become an obstacle, causing you to lose out on financial opportunities that could propel your business forward.

This is where AI comes into play, with its ability to simplify and automate these steps. For example, using your business data, an AI agent could write a solid structure for your project or even generate financial forecasts based on your financial statements. Such tools not only reduce the time spent on administrative tasks but could also potentially improve your chances of success.

Using AI to automate the preparation of funding applications could therefore represent a major competitive advantage. It would free up merchants’ time to focus on what really matters: growing their business.

AI: A Lever for Competitiveness for SMEs

In the past, these innovations were reserved for large chains with substantial resources. Today, they are accessible to SMEs at a lower cost. Far from being a threat, AI can become a real growth lever for local grocers. Of course, it’s not about blindly trusting technology. As the saying goes: garbage in, garbage out. In other words, if AI models are trained on faulty data, they will produce biased and incorrect results. It’s crucial to master these tools to get the most out of them. Without a wake-up call, it is certain that large chains have fully understood the stakes of this technology and have decided to focus on it. In technology, the Innovator's Dilemma refers to the fact that market leaders rest on their laurels while an innovation that initially only penetrates a small segment of their market ends up growing to the point of rendering them obsolete. Fully aware of this, they are determined to use AI, and this could simply widen the gap with SMEs.

According to the Canadian retail grocery market study report published in June 2023, Canada needs more competition in a highly concentrated grocery sector. Among the recommendations in this document is a strategy for innovation to support the emergence of new types of businesses and expand consumer choice. Furthermore, it mentions that support from various levels of government should encourage the growth of independent grocers and the entry of new players into the market. Epipresto was even identified in this report as one of the solutions contributing to this competitiveness and innovation, which is a huge point of pride for us.

At OneTrip, we develop solutions to help grocery stores boost their growth. We believe that, ultimately, competition benefits consumers and society. Thus, we don’t just digitize grocery stores; we help them thrive, solidly rooted in their community.

The goal of this post is to spread the good news so that more people become aware of the importance of adopting these technologies. They say the best time to seize an opportunity was yesterday, and the second-best time is today.

Do you think it’s time for a wake-up call or decline for SMEs in the food sector? How do you think AI will affect this industry?

Thank you for sharing your comments and thoughts with us.