In retail, digital transformation is more than a requirement — it’s a race. Already, many retail organizations are embracing generative AI to reimagine ways of working and empower their employees to deliver amazing work. Gemini, our most capable family of AI models yet, can generate text, images, audio, video and code and understand and summarize virtually any type of information, unlocking new points of differentiation for retailers.

Here are the top five most powerful ways retailers are using Gemini models to transform their businesses and accelerate growth.

1. Personalizing experiences for shoppers

With Gemini’s advanced reasoning and multimodal capabilities, retailers can build AI agents that can analyze customer data while interacting with information like images and video. One example is virtual stylists: thanks to Gemini, customers can use a combination of chat and images to find exactly what they are looking for, increasing their satisfaction and preventing shoppers from leaving the site to find their product elsewhere.

Victoria’s Secret is testing AI-powered agents to assist in-store associates with finding information about product availability, inventory, and fitting and sizing tips, helping them to tailor recommendations for customers.

2. Automating customer service

Gen AI is transforming customer service through automation, from self-service channels to call centers to social media platforms. For instance, Best Buy now resolves issues up to 90 seconds faster using automated call summarization with help from Gemini.

Gemini also makes it easier for customers to return and exchange items, combining multiple types of information together in a single conversation. Customers can share an image or a video of a faulty product, alongside voice or chat interactions, allowing both human and AI agents to better understand issues and resolve them faster. Think how much more straightforward it is to identify that glitches on a smartphone are due to a defective screen when agents can see a live video of the behavior.

3. Enhancing marketing and customer outreach

Gemini’s native multimodal capabilities enable retailers to deliver highly relevant, personalized experiences for shoppers in ways that were previously impossible. Now, retailers can generate new content for emails and marketing messages in the form of images, text and even videos for every individual shopper in a matter of seconds. For example, Estée Lauder Companies, Inc. launched the Estée Lauder Language Assistant (ELLA), which runs on Gemini, for a variety of different gen AI use cases, including language translations, generating ad copy, and summarizing meetings.

Marketing teams can take this one step further and use Gemini to ask questions about data and get actionable responses, such as identifying new shopper audiences. Instead of needing prior systems or technical knowledge, teams can now simply ask something like, “Find first-time visitors to our store that have previously shopped online” to generate a new audience to connect with.

4. Making operations more efficient

Gemini is also helping retailers achieve more efficient and stable operations, making it easier to tackle complex tasks like optimizing supply chains or managing inventory. Leading Australian supermarket Woolworths utilizes the “Help me write” AI feature across Google Workspace to enable more than 10,000 administrative employees to communicate with confidence. It also uses Gemini to create next-generation promotions and summarize previous customer interactions in real time.

Some other prime examples include using Gemini's long-context capabilities to analyze video inspection footage of delivered merchandise for damaged items or packaging and flag them for return. Retailers are also adopting Gemini to enable store associates to monitor and optimize digital shelves. For instance, a retail store associate could use Gemini to “talk to” their data and gain real-time insights about stock levels, customer behavior, and potential issues on the floor, such as low inventory or misplaced items.

5. Helping teams find trends — and build faster

Another area where Gemini is quickly gaining traction is in the identification of new product opportunities and the latest product trends. For instance, retailers can easily analyze unstructured data — social media videos or support call recordings — and quickly summarize the key points to gain insights and ideas about what customers want and need.

In addition, Gemini can help developers code faster with greater confidence, significantly shortening the time it takes for new capabilities to be built and released to customers. Online retailer Wayfair recently piloted Gemini Code Assist, enabling developers to set up environments 55% faster than before and boosting code performance by 48%. Overall, 60% of Wayfair’s developers reported using an AI coding assistant allowed them to focus on more satisfying work.

Kickstart your gen AI-powered transformation

At Google Cloud, we work with the world’s leading retailers, lending our deep experience and expertise to help them thrive in this new gen AI era. Every day, we learn more from our customers about how Gemini’s multimodal capabilities are making it possible for them to empower their employees to get more done, be more creative and curious, and exceed customer expectations. Learn more about how we can help you with gen AI on our website.