Honeywell: 96% of Indian Retailers Use AI, Aahead of Global Average

Honeywell has released its Global Retailer Technology Survey, which found that India’s major retailers are fully invested in artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential to make operations more efficient. Almost all (96%) in-country retailers said they are using AI, with plans to either expand in the near future or maintain current usage of the technology, as compared to 85% globally.

The survey also highlights how Indian retailers are using AI, from smarter inventory and demand forecasting to enhanced customer service and optimized last-mile delivery.

• Retailers in India said demand planning (50%), customer experience (41%) and logistics and distribution centers (41%) were the business areas that stand to benefit most from AI and digitization.
• Survey respondents in India attributed more value to AI for demand planning and supply chain logistics than other regions did (+14% and +7%, respectively, from the global average).
• By contrast, fewer retailers in India than in other regions said AI had the potential to improve procurement activities (20% in India vs. 28% globally).     

“Retailers are looking to AI to better understand what their customers want and how to best meet their needs in a constantly changing market,” said Ritwij Kulkarni, General Manager, Industrial Automation, Honeywell India. “In a country as large and diverse as India, AI has tremendous potential to create hyper-personalized customer experiences and optimize the flow of retail goods throughout the supply chain so they reach shoppers in the most efficient way.”

Other advanced technologies are making a significant impact on the retail landscape in India, with a majority of retailers already invested in machine and camera vision (CV) technologies (68%) and optical character recognition (OCR) (64%). While less common overall, augmented reality (AR) is also gaining traction, in use by 39% of surveyed Indian retailers.

OCR can significantly speed up retail workflows when replenishing the shelf inventory or identifying mislabeled prices by quickly reading labels and other product information. CV can help mitigate the growing challenge with retail shrinkage, while AR can help shoppers or employees visualize a product in a space.

While the results showed overall continued momentum for AI, Indian retailers expressed some concerns about its adoption.

• Nearly half of respondents (48%) anticipated that the greatest challenge for future AI implementation in the industry would be customer acceptance, compared with 40% globally—suggesting there is an opportunity for Indian retailers to demonstrate to customers the benefits AI can bring.
• Other top challenges for in-country retailers in implementing AI were regulatory compliance (43%) and complexity of AI models (38%).

Honeywell’s Global Retailer Technology Survey focused on large retailers throughout the U.S., Europe, Latin America, India and the Middle East and how they are using advanced technologies throughout their operations, including AI, automation, augmented reality, machine vision and sensors. Indian retailers participating in the survey had a minimum annual revenue of $10 million USD.