AI and Data as the driver of growth in Retail

By Billy Loizou, APAC Area Vice President, Amperity

The role of data in underpinning better retail experiences will continue to grow across APAC in 2025. Australian retailers who haven’t yet embraced comprehensive data collection and analysis need to act now. By leveraging customer data through advanced technologies, retailers can deliver the powerful, personalised experiences that today’s consumers expect.

Data as a driver of growth will be increasingly important to retail success in a dual-channel future. By 2028, Forrester forecasts that global retail e-commerce sales will grow to US$6.8 trillion (A$10.8 trillion), capturing 24% of global retail sales. Yet, physical shops will remain the backbone of retail: US$21.9 trillion (A$34.8 trillion) of the US$28.7 trillion (A$45.7 trillion) in worldwide retail sales in 2028 will still happen offline.

These statistics highlight why a unified approach to customer data is essential; retailers must seamlessly integrate both digital and physical touchpoints to succeed. Those who can effectively bridge the online-offline data divide will gain a decisive competitive advantage, while those who treat these channels in isolation risk missing crucial insights about their customers’ complete shopping journey.

This underscores the critical role of digital transformation in the industry’s growth and highlights why retailers can’t afford to fall behind in their data capabilities.

True Personalisation and Connected Experiences

Consumers today demand more than just a personalised email or product recommendation. They expect seamless, cohesive experiences that reflect their unique preferences across every touchpoint.

For retailers, this means connecting data from every channel—online, in-shop, and mobile—into a centralised system that reveals comprehensive customer behaviour. For example, when a customer browses winter coats online, then visits a physical shop, sales associates should have immediate access to their preferences and past purchases to provide relevant suggestions and enhance their retail shopping experience. This level of personalization typically leads to increased conversion rates and higher average transaction values.

This level of connected experience requires modern data infrastructure capable of delivering real-time, actionable insights across all customer touchpoints.

Live Insights with Advanced Technology

Customer data platforms (CDPs) and customer data clouds (CDCs, comprehensive data management systems) are transforming how retailers harness customer data. These technologies merge and standardise information from diverse sources into a single, actionable platform. These tools use advanced identity resolution and data stitching capabilities to build accurate customer profiles that power real-time personalisation.

The impact is immediate: retailers can track performance metrics beyond traditional sales revenue and foot traffic, gaining instant insights into campaign effectiveness, particularly during critical periods like the holiday season.

This real-time capability enables retailers to adapt to shifting consumer trends as they unfold. When a promotion performs exceptionally well, marketing teams can immediately amplify its reach. If certain products show unexpected popularity, inventory managers can adjust orders in real time. By automating these processes and providing immediate feedback, these advanced tools transform how retailers engage with customers and manage operations across all channels.

Empowering Employees with Data Democratisation

One of the most impactful trends in 2025 is data democratisation—the effort to make data accessible to all employees, not just technical teams. By breaking down silos and providing user-friendly tools, retailers can empower employees at every level to use data in their decision-making processes.

This democratisation fosters a culture of innovation and agility, allowing teams to solve problems and identify opportunities without waiting for centralised analysis. It also ensures that leadership can make informed strategic decisions based on a comprehensive understanding of the business.

Individualised Messaging with Generative AI

For years, the challenge with personalisation at scale has been the cost and complexity of asset creation. Today, generative AI is transforming the ability for retailers to quickly produce tailored content, from copy to images, across platforms and marketing campaigns. This capability allows retailers to move from broad audience segments to truly individualised messaging, creating one-to-one connections with their customers.

Moreover, generative AI simplifies the process of deploying hyper-personalisation strategies, making it easier for retailers to incorporate personalised content into campaigns. However, success depends on having clean, unified customer data as the foundation.

The quality of AI outputs directly reflects the quality of input data—retailers must ensure their data infrastructure is robust and well-structured to prevent misallocation of marketing resources and guarantee effective customer targeting.

Intuitive Support with Conversational AI

In 2025, conversational AI will continue to reshape retail by enabling seamless, human-like interactions. From chatbots assisting shoppers to voice-activated customer support, this technology enhances user engagement and streamlines service delivery. These tools provide real-time responses, automate routine inquiries, and offer personalised recommendations, creating a seamless and intuitive customer journey.

As a subset of generative AI, conversational AI can also create content and translate languages to cater to diverse customer needs. By adopting these tools, retailers can deliver scalable, personalised experiences in real-time that meet the demands of an evolving marketplace.

Predictive Analytics for Better Business Decisions

AI’s role in retail continues to expand, moving beyond operational efficiencies to unlocking transformative insights. AI-powered predictive analytics enable businesses to forecast demand, refine customer segmentation, and anticipate market shifts with precision.

For example, retailers can use AI to optimise inventory management, ensuring that popular items are always in stock while minimising waste. Similarly, AI-driven tools streamline creative processes, enabling teams to focus on high-value tasks while leaving repetitive work to intelligent systems. These insights empower retailers to make data-driven decisions that positively impact their bottom line and enhance the customer experience.

Stand Out with Bespoke Solutions

The next frontier of AI in retail lies in customisation. Generic, one-size-fits-all solutions are being replaced by AI tools that businesses can tailor to their unique goals and requirements. These customisable solutions allow retailers to align technology with their brand identity, creating a competitive edge that sets them apart in the market.

Whether it’s adjusting algorithms to reflect brand values or creating bespoke AI models for specific challenges, this level of customisation enables retailers to maximise the value of their AI investments.

Who is Getting it Right?

One retail brand recently transforming  its global data and marketing operations strategy is iconic footwear brand Dr. Martens, selecting Amperity as its AI-powered solution. This strategic move is set to enable Dr. Martens to recognise and engage customers consistently across all channels, driving significant performance improvements.

This transformation comes at a pivotal time as the digital industry adapts to evolving privacy regulations and the approaching end of third-party cookies. Through this partnership, Dr. Martens will leverage Amperity’s AI-powered identity resolution and insights platform to scale their data maturity across key global markets while ensuring privacy compliance.

“At Dr. Martens, we’re not just selling iconic boots, shoes, and sandals; we’re elevating retail experiences that exceed expectations,” said Lynn Ritson, Global Digital Director at Dr. Martens. “Selecting Amperity demonstrates our commitment to enhancing customer engagement with AI-powered personalisation. Initial results show we can better serve our customers across all touchpoints while driving business growth.”

In today’s evolving digital landscape, this proactive approach to enhancing customer engagement through an AI-powered customer data cloud will enable personalised experiences across all touchpoints, while maintaining robust privacy compliance. This collaboration reflects how leading retail brands are using AI-driven solutions to build deeper customer relationships and drive sustainable growth.

The Future of Retail: Building on Data

Retail success across the APAC region is going to be strongly tied to how well organisations leverage their customer data.

The retailers who succeed will be those who build strong foundations for AI-driven personalisation and real-time decision making. By investing in unified customer data platforms and modern AI tools, retailers can create distinctive shopping experiences that drive loyalty and growth.

Retailers should take immediate action: assess current data capabilities, identify gaps in their customer data strategy, and develop a phased implementation plan for these technologies. Start by unifying existing data sources, then gradually introduce AI tools that align with specific business objectives. In 2025’s competitive marketplace, having modern data infrastructure won’t just be an advantage—it’s going to be essential for survival.