Yakov and Partners experts have looked at how AI is used in the Russian retail sector. According to the results of the survey that followed up on a large-scale joint study with Yandex, Artificial Intelligence in Russia: Trends and Outlook, e-commerce companies have proven to be more adept in leveraging artificial intelligence. While most retailers are merely experimenting with AI, all of the surveyed e-commerce companies are already setting AI as their strategic goal or implementing the technologies across all functions and creating real economic impact. Moreover, generative technologies are used by 67% of e-commerce companies and less than 10% of retailers.
Just as before, marketing and sales, customer service, and supply chain are priority areas for artificial intelligence implementation in these industries. In terms of the technology itself, all companies use machine learning algorithms, but only 8% of retailers have identified priority use cases and incorporated generative AI development in their strategies, while half of e-commerce companies have already done that.
Retailers are much more conservative with their investments in AI. Every second retailer invests up to 2% of their digitalization budget in AI, while one in two e-commerce companies spends 3–5%. In general, companies from both industries expect that AI will help them reduce costs and improve customer loyalty. E-commerce players, however, believe that AI will also increase the value of their products.
Unlike companies from other industries, merchants are less concerned about the risks associated with the use of AI. One half of e-commerce players do not see any risks at all, while the other half are concerned about cybersecurity only. The key challenges identified by the companies in their AI implementation journey include the need to find the right people and the lack of AI-based solutions and tools in the market, or problems with developing such solutions.
The preferred option for the companies from this sector is outsourcing the development functions to create AI-based solutions adapted to their needs. Also, all e-commerce players are ready to develop AI solutions independently thanks to their strong internal IT teams.
The survey was conducted as part of the study Artificial Intelligence in Russia – 2023: Trends and Outlook. More than a hundred of CTOs from major Russian companies in 15 industries took part in the survey. They represented 90% of the country's top retailers and 60% of its e-commerce market.
