The Inaugural Retail AI Index: Celebrating the Top 100 Brands and Retailers

The inaugural 2024 Retail AI Index is here! This comprehensive analysis, which was completed in partnership with Radii Group, shows how AI is visibly reshaping retail. By measuring the public demonstration of AI-powered innovation across leaders in apparel, footwear, beauty, and home segments, this index serves as a critical benchmark for understanding the integration and consumer-facing impact of AI in retail.

Within its pages, you’ll find the definitive ranking of the top 100 brands and retailers who are investing in AI and implementing it to create better experiences for their customers. All 100 of these businesses have very unique—yet extremely effective—implementations of AI technologies, as these innovations rapidly evolve both the world and the retail industry, specifically.

This comes at a time when the global market size of AI in retail is expected to grow from $7.3 billion to $29.45 billion by 2028. Yet, did you know that American retailers and brands are slow to adopt AI, in comparison to their peers across the globe? China leads in AI adoption, with 58% of companies having deployed AI, while only a mere 25% of American companies have. This Index explores the most innovative and impactful implementations of AI in the retail space across the U.S., and celebrates today’s leaders.

As eMarketer states in their coverage of the Index, “The wide array of companies featured in Lily AI’s index shows that AI is increasingly a must-have tool in retailers’ arsenals, especially as they look for ways to deliver more personalized experiences, drive efficiencies within their organizations, and head off competitors.”

With all that in mind, let’s break down the numbers you’ll explore in the report.

Discover 100 Retail Trailblazers Embracing AI

Through a comprehensive analysis of publicly-available data surrounding companies’ investments in AI, we discovered the top 100 innovators in the retail space across fashion, home, and beauty categories.

While AI itself is not new and has been utilized in retail for decades, recent advancements are opening up exciting new applications that go beyond enhancing operational efficiency, to further accelerating revenue and sales through innovations in product discovery and development.

Get Inspired by 12+ Case Studies and 5 Impactful AI Applications

How are the top 100 applying AI today? The Index dives into all of this and more, like the following examples of retailers and the technologies they’ve applied.

1) Augmented Reality (AR)

We detail what AR is, how it’s historically been applied to retail, and the innovations it’s ushering into the industry today. Lowe’s is a particularly strong innovator in the AR space, and in the Index, we detail how their Lowe’s Vision app helps customers navigate stores and find products based on their interests and shopping histories.

2) Machine Learning (ML)

ML is the most popular AI-based technology deployed by retailers and brands. And this means that there’s a lot to dig into! The Index details some of its applications, with a special focus on how ASOS bakes ML into their shopping experiences, with its customer profile builder.

3) Deep Learning

Amazon is famously innovative with their use of AI. The Index explores how they’re using complex deep learning systems to find patterns in customer behaviors and shopping preferences, reduce packaging waste, and find process efficiencies.

4) Real-Time Analytics

One of AI’s superpowers is its ultra-fast processing time! Sephora is a retailer who is taking full advantage of this within the beauty industry. We cover how they’re using real-time data provided by online shoppers, in order to recommend the most relevant, interesting products.

5) Chatbots and Virtual Assistants

As natural language processing improves, chatbots are also improving all the time! We dive into consumer preferences surrounding these helpful tools, specifically exploring how Williams-Sonoma has deployed a chatbot that’s designed to determine the perfect gift.

Get All This AI Info and More!

The worlds of AI-powered innovation and retail will continue to intersect. The top 100 honored within the 2024 Retail AI Index are at the forefront of this movement.

At Lily AI, our vision is to bring humanity to shopping. Every day, we meet with retail industry leaders who share their strategies, challenges, and successes in delivering the best possible customer experiences. Inspired by these innovators and early adopters, and with our own disciplines as a data-driven and analytical company culture, we set out to quantify the state of retail AI today.

Our Index and its findings place an emphasis on AI that goes beyond automation and efficiency, to measurably, meaningfully, and directly improve shopping ways that we each can personally experience as consumers.