The AI Data War in Retail Is Just Getting Started. Lessons from Black Friday ...

The last two weeks were the biggest sales week for many online retailers as the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals all took over. I did my own takeover of the newsletter as I usually do to share a holiday gift list. Now that I'm back sharing stories this week, there have been plenty of reports about what happened on Black Friday and who were the ​winners and losers​ from a numbers perspective. Online sales were strong and ​reportedly up 4%​ (though these gains may be canceled out by inflation), while ​store sales were mixed​.

The interesting thing about this sales week and the growing role of AI in pricing is that it's increasingly creating scenarios where pricing is dynamically adjusted based on a number of factors. One story this week mentioned that the ​price of eggs from one Target store to the next may vary​ based on real-time market data. On the flip side of this dynamic pricing are the growing capabilities for AI tools to aid consumers in the buying process. ​ChatGPT launched their shopping research mode​ and AI has gotten exceedingly good at common consumer tasks such as ​searching for otherwise hidden discount or promo codes​.

All things point to a dual sided war powered by AI data analytics on the retail side allowing extremely granular real-time dynamic pricing ... and AI shopping tools on the consumer side allowing online shoppers to always find the lowest prices and most money-saving discount codes.