Retail executives are enthusiastic about AI, ranking it as a top-two choice for nearly all their strategic business priorities, and nearly one in four (24%) of respondents to a recent Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) survey already are using AI for autonomous decision-making. However, there’s plenty of white space for additional deployments: 87% of respondents have not started, or are not planning to implement, multi-agent AI systems.
The survey, conducted in December 2025, received responses from 800 retail executives in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Respondent personas included leaders in marketing, merchandising, supply chain and digital information.
Customer-Facing AI Deployments are Just the First Step
Just over half (51%) of respondents said chatbots and virtual assistants are leading the way in their AI initiatives; however, TCS believes these customer-facing deployments, while providing a fast ROI and low risk, don’t actually shift retail economics.
“The true strategic battleground for retail’s future success lies in leveraging AI for operations,” according to the report. “Measurable impact happens when conversational data connects to pricing, inventory optimization and supply chain agility, which is still uncommon in retail.”
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Among organizations that are beginning to use the tech more strategically, AI-driven dynamic pricing is the key tactic to drive profitable growth among 42% of respondents. Strategic implementations using AI and predictive analytics for market and demand forecasting also are popular, providing increased resiliency and agility to meet rapidly changing market conditions and potential disruptions.
Retailers Failing to Leverage Loyalty Data
The survey’s other key findings concerned the use of loyalty data to inform enterprise-level decisions, or rather the lack thereof: only 45% of respondents use their loyalty program data for strategic pricing and promotions. Even fewer, 42%, use this data for customer segmentation, lifecycle management, and product and assortment planning, and just 37% use the information to better manage channel- and store-experience strategies.
“Clearly, the potential to inform enterprise decisions remains largely untapped, highlighting a fundamental disconnect between data collection and strategic application,” according to the report. “Retailers need to unlock the full value of their loyalty programs by unifying data, embedding privacy-by-design principles and leveraging AI across merchandising and operations to turn insights into action.”
