Checklist for optimizing your retail infrastructure for AI

Your network can make or break the customer experience. Data-hungry applications like AI chatbots could divert bandwidth from other mission-critical applications—or even increase outages or downtime—impacting customer loyalty and sales opportunities. 

AI’s data demands means retailers require more bandwidth to meet customer expectations. Reliable, instantly scalable networking solutions that minimize latency provide the bandwidth AI needs for optimal performance. Enhancing operational efficiencies helps drive customer satisfaction while boosting the bottom line.

AI’s reliance on big data can increase vulnerability to cyberthreats. For retailers, data poisoning or model manipulation could mean incorrect inventory predictions, flawed customer insights or a dip in sales. Design your security stack with AI in mind, for example, by leveraging AI algorithms to detect and minimize return fraud.

Invest in strong cybersecurity measures that protect sensitive customer and organizational data from unauthorized access, model manipulations and cyberthreats. This strengthens customer trust and helps ensure AI systems operate on accurate and reliable data.

AI requires huge data sets that could create massive bottlenecks in transit that can result in slower response times. With the right cloud edge solution in place, retailers can deliver near real-time personalized customer recommendations or promotions while their smart warehouses can process inventory updates without delays, stockouts or overstocking. 

Implement edge fabric solutions to enhance AI application performance by allocating computing resources near data sources. This helps reduce latency, streamline cloud connectivity and increase processing speeds, enabling trust and confidence among shoppers.

With the right tools and integration plans, retailers can shield shoppers from bad app issues, irrelevant product suggestions or inconsistent pricing. Implementing 24/7 management support helps optimize inventory and demand forecasting with automatic reordering to prevent stockouts that could impact brand reputation. 

Partner with a trusted advisor to help you deploy and seamlessly integrate AI. Avoid expensive missteps with a plan for continuous maintenance and monitoring. 
Get professional expertise on complex challenges to maximize performance and uptime, allowing your internal resources to focus on core business projects without increasing headcount.