How AI is set to permeate property

Alex McCulloch, Director at CACI

First published in Retail Destination, March 14 2024

In the last 18 months AI has gone from a niche future-gazing topic to an everyday reality and is the subject of the day in every other news story and article – including this one. 

AI will transform every business and industry and reshape how we engage with the world. In retail we can speculate on the potential long-term significant wins in leasing process, the infrastructure through which we do business, and the potential speed of optimisation – throughout the supply chain from logistics, to stock control, staffing, shrinkage and put big analytics in the hands of all. 

But these structural changes take time to filter through as businesses assess the benefits. In the first instance we think that first gains will be seen this year in the consumer space, and there are three areas where we can see immediate wins: improved customer experience, enhanced personalisation within retailers and optimised marketing.

AI will become part of our everyday toolkit in the near future, but it is worth remembering that the fundamentals don’t change – all turnover is a function of 3 things: volume of unique visitors, the frequency they visit and the amount they spend when they do. 

At CACI we are using AI to benchmark all the retail destinations across the UK to identify which of these levers a centre needs to pull on to deliver achievable growth.