Executives from Hilos and PacSun Explain Why People Should Be at the Core of Retail’s AI Revolution

Artificial intelligence is coming for retail. But that doesn’t mean it’s coming for everyone’s jobs.

In presentations during the FN Summit on Tuesday in New York City, shoe and retail executives discussed how companies can implement AI into their businesses while keeping humans engaged in the process.

In her session, PacSun‘s chief digital and information officer Shirley Gao cited a recent survey of more than 500 retailers from the Retail AI Council and McMillan-Doolittle that found that 85 percent of members expected to increase their AI investments over the next two years. Gao explained in her presentation how AI can be especially useful when it comes to text searching and online shopping.

“The traditional keyword search is not good at contextualizing or understanding what the customers intent is in the meaning and furthermore does not have the capability to understand a trend,” Gao said. On the other hand, search functions that utilize AI have the “capability to learn from social media, Google search, Tik Tok and Instagram,” Gao said, which makes search results for certain terms more relevant to what the consumer might be looking for.

While AI certainly has its uses in retail, Gao said it is up to businesses and employees to tactfully integrate this technology to benefit their workflows and product offerings.

“Our job is not going to be taken away by AI,” Gao said. “But it’s going to be taken away by people who use AI.”

Hilos chief executive officer and founder Elias Stahl discussed how his company, which designs and manufactures 3D printed footwear, utilizes AI. The executive said that he sees AI as helping a company generate “faster, cheaper content” in the form of high quality 3D renderings or chatbot tools for customer service. However, he noted the importance of retaining the human element of a project in which AI is involved.

“As a brand, your competitive advantage is your team,” Stahl said. “It’s that human part within you that enables you to do something that AI can’t.”

Hilos addresses this dichotomy by creating a model that emphasizes the best of both human and AI workflows. For example, Hilos’ shoe design platform lets humans design their own shoe sketches but uses AI to accelerate the process.

“If we build tools that enable to deep design and protect human authorship, then you can really benefit and be competitive in an AI world,” Stahl said.