Since online grocery shopping is growing, traditional grocery retailers are trying to develop omnichannel approaches to stay viable for the 4th industrial revolution. Kroger, one of America's largest grocers, is making a significant commitment to creating the grocery experience of the future via today's latest technology.

1. The 4th Industrial
Revolution:
How U.S. Retail Giant
Kroger Is Using AI
And Robots

2. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Title
Text
Introduction
How US Retail Giant Kroger Is Using
Artificial Intelligence And Robots To Prepare
For The 4th Industrial Revolution
Since online grocery shopping is growing, traditional grocery retailers
are trying to develop omnichannel approaches to stay viable for the
4th industrial revolution. Kroger, one of America's largest grocers, is
making a significant commitment to creating the grocery experience
of the future via today's latest technology.

3. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Kroger, one of America’s largest grocery chains, has decided to embrace
technology to help it survive and thrive in the 4th industrial revolution.
With 2,782 grocery stores under nearly two dozen names in 35 states,
Kroger plans to leverage its data, shopper insights and scale to help it
remain a leader in the marketplace of the future.
According to a study by the Food Marketing Institute, online grocery is
expected to account for 20% of all grocery retail by 2022 and reach
$100 billion in consumer sales, so Kroger and its competitors are smart
to figure out ways to use technology to their advantage.

4. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
In the fall of 2017, Kroger unveiled an audacious three-year $9 billion plan called
Restock Kroger with the goal to build out its e-commerce, digital and
omnichannel businesses and redefine the customer experience. The grocer
already delivers 3 billion personalized recommendations each year, but they will
enhance the personalization efforts to "create different experiences for
customers." Not only will shoppers receive useful content digitally, but also
"inspiration" through product-related content and recipes.
The expansion of Kroger's Scan, Bag, Go pilot program that allows shoppers to
scan products as they shop with their smartphone is also part of the Restock
Kroger initiative. After being tested in 20 stores, it should be unveiled to 400
stores by the end of 2018. Additional investment in Internet of Things (IoT)
sensors, machine learning, and artificial intelligence will be made to increase the
efficiency of Kroger's operations.
Restock Kroger Initiative

5. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Today, we can get groceries delivered, but Kroger is testing the delivery of the
future - grocery delivery by an autonomous vehicle. Kroger partnered with Nuro,
a Silicon Valley company that specializes in autonomous vehicles for delivery, on
its pilot program.
Customers can use Kroger’s ClickList ordering system and Nuro’s app to place
same-day delivery orders, but they will need to be home to retrieve their
grocery bags from the vehicle after unlocking the doors with a unique code.
No word yet on which cities will be selected to test autonomous delivery, but
unmanned delivery is expected to be disruptive for local commerce.
Delivery by autonomous vehicles

6. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
A partnership between Kroger and British online-only grocer Ocado is expected
to help Kroger automate its warehouses and use artificial intelligence to bolster
its bottom line.
Ocado claims to have the world’s most sophisticated automated grocery
warehouses and has worked with Uber and Instacart to test delivery options,
and it’s this know-how that Kroger aims to leverage with its investment. The
companies announced they would open three new warehouses that Ocado will
operate followed by another 17 in the next three years.
Ocado’s warehouses are run by robots that are powered by machine learning
algorithms to navigate around the warehouse and pick products for orders. With
this investment and access to Ocado’s technology, Kroger will get products to
stores more efficiently.
Automated warehouses

7. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Kroger’s in-house analytics firm 84.51 deployed Kroger
Precision Marketing that uses customer purchase data from
Kroger’s 60 million shopper households to launch
marketing campaigns across a digital spectrum.
This helps enhance personalization for customers, but also
allows product manufacturers excellent opportunities to
market to their ideal customers on Kroger.com, branded
digital media and the MyMagazine Sharing Network.
Marketing gets a boost from analytics

8. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
84.51 has made it a priority to enable and embed machine
learning into Kroger’s operations where a “machine learning
machine” can build and deploy a lot of models with very
little human intervention in a project called Embedded
Machine Learning.
With a mission to “enable, empower and engage” machine
learning within the organization, this was a sophisticated
approach to machine learning with Solution Engineering,
Model Development and Model Deployment as three
phases to machine learning methodology.
Machine learning

9. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
When a Kroger customer walks down the aisle with the Kroger app open,
sensors identify the shopper and provide personal pricing and highlight
products the customer might be interested in via smart shelves technology.
Not only do smart shelves help the customer, but it also helps the store monitor
inventory to be sure expired products aren't on the shelves or that everything is
stocked correctly—and there's a customer experience impact with these as well.
This technology has been in the testing phase by Kroger since 2015, so while
adoption is slow, the grocer is working to optimize it before it gets deployed.
Smart shelves

10. © 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
With this commitment to artificial intelligence, machine
learning, and smart technology, Kroger seems on the right
track to staying competitive for the 4th industrial revolution.

11. © 2017 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
© 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a
strategic business & technology advisor to governments and companies. He helps
organisations improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and
understand the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data,
blockchains, and the Internet of Things.
LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top 5 business influencers. He is a frequent
contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for Forbes. Every day
Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers and shares content that
reaches millions of readers.
Visit The
Website
© 2017 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
© 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a
strategic business & technology advisor to governments and companies. He helps
organisations improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and
understand the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data,
blockchains, and the Internet of Things.
LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top 5 business influencers. He is a frequent
contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for Forbes. Every day
Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers and shares content that
reaches millions of readers.
Visit The
Website

12. BernardMarr
hello@bernardmarr.com
www.bernardmarr.com