Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is redefining how businesses operate.
With its potent ability to analyze large amounts of data and automate complex tasks, it sets new standards for operational agility and is becoming a strategic imperative for forward-thinking organizations.
Using the power of GenAI, convenience stores can unlock new productivity levels to promote operational efficiency and cost savings, create more engaging customer experiences to drive revenue and frequency, and gain data-driven insights from previously unused datasets to drive smarter decision-making.
What Is GenAI?
To maximize the potential of GenAI, it’s crucial to have a clear understanding of what it is and how it works. Most of the AI we hear and read about in the news specifically refers to Generative AI, a specific application that uses a Large Language Model (LLM) to interpret significant amounts of human language content to inform its outputs. LLMs now handle both human-language inputs and outputs, making them more accessible to the general public than they were before. OpenAI’s ChatGPT was the first such product to garner massive worldwide attention, but Google’s Gemini and other open-source LLMs have followed suit, leading to a GenAI gold rush to be the dominant player.
GenAI excels at processing large amounts of data, enabling users to ask questions and receive relevant answers related to that data. This is precisely what ChatGPT does: its LLM is built from all of the publicly available content on the Internet, which it uses to generate answers to users’ questions. Many companies are taking the next step and inputting their internal knowledge bases and playbooks into a GenAI model, which enables their workforce to more easily access and utilize that information without having to manually search for the information in a database.
Businesses are also implementing GenAI to drive operational efficiencies and derive value from previously untapped data stores. For example, Bounteous x Accolite utilizes Persado’s motivational AI platform, a proprietary language knowledge base with GenAI tools, to create personalized brand experiences at scale. Persado’s AI technology generates headlines and copy that outperforms human-only content 96% of the time, driving measurably better outcomes for retail brands.
A notable example of GenAI use within the convenience industry is Casey’s General Stores, which has rolled out AI technologies that synchronize with their customer loyalty program, ensuring that orders placed over the phone are seamlessly connected with the customers’ online profiles.
Whether your convenience chain is large or small, you can begin to implement GenAI to improve your business. The following three ways will help your organization take the next step.
1.) Activate AI-Enabled Features in Your Current Tech Stack
The simplest way to begin reaping the benefits of AI is to embrace AI-enabled features released within the platforms and systems your company is already using. Microsoft has been rolling out their Copilot tool, which can auto-transcribe and summarize video conference calls on Teams to let team members focus on higher-value work. And tools like Adobe Photoshop and Figma have incorporated AI features that make content generation easier than ever before. These are the fastest ways to begin to leverage AI to make your workforce more efficient and productive without taking the giant risk of building LLM technologies yourself.
2.) Integrate Ready-To-Use AI-Enabled Platforms
Tech platforms are rapidly adding AI-enabled features to improve effectiveness. Customer data platforms such as mParticle have incorporated AI models to predict customers’ future actions based on behavior data from the entire customer base. This enables proactive measures to reduce churn or avoiding unnecessary discounts. Adobe, a leader in GenAi, has released a number of AI-enabled features into Experience Cloud. These features make content generation easier, A/B testing and customer journey optimization more effective, and customer data more actionable to drive increased engagement and frequency.
3.) Use GenAI Models with Your Company Data
The biggest step towards utilizing AI is to use APIs or open-source GenAI models to fine tune the functionality with your company’s own proprietary data. This can yield massive gains in terms of insights and productivity, and even give your workforce a way to query data by simply asking questions of the GenAI tool, rather than writing complex queries and parsing results.
Regardless of the size of your business, convenience retailers should be running experiments with these AI tools; the efficiency and productivity gains are worth the investment.
The Future of GenAI for C-Stores
The integration of GenAI can have a notable effect on cost efficiency, customer engagement and operational excellence for c-stores. From enhancing customer service with AI-powered chatbots to optimizing in-store administrative tasks and gaining valuable insights from data stores, the applications of GenAI can be as diverse as they are impactful. Leveraging these advanced technologies is not just about keeping pace with the digital revolution, but about proactively seeking ways to refine business processes, enrich customer experiences and drive forward-thinking strategies.
Mike Maxwell is Bounteous x Accolite’s senior vice president of technology for the restaurant and convenience industries. He guides the team responsible for architecting, building, testing, deploying and monitoring digital properties for 35-plus top restaurant and c-store brands, including Jackson’s Food Stores, Dash In and Wingstop.