By Chuck Martin

Artificial intelligence is the nervous system of retail organizations.

That was the main message from Robert Hetu, vice president and analyst at retail, addressing many of the 9,000 attendees at the annual Gartner Symposium being held at the Walt Disney World Dolphin and Swan Resort in Orlando this week.

“Cost savings and improved customer experience are the greatest impact to retailers,” he said.

Hetu cited Walmart as an example of a retailer testing AI in the core of the store to track on-shelf ability of products.

By 2021, 77% of retail organizations plan to deploy AI, Hetu said.

The main AI applications are recommendations for customers, associate facing features for store tasks and virtual or augmented reality for customers.

New applications planned by 2021 include robots for warehouse picking, visual web search and virtual or augmented reality for customers, Hetu said.