The COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted the retail landscape and has accelerated the adoption of innovative technologies. A striking example relates to the proliferation of online grocery orders and the technology deployed to facilitate such logistics. In fact, for many retailers, this disruption was a wake-up call after which they started recognizing the power of data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI). In this article, we discuss the opportunities that AI can offer to retailers in the new normal retail landscape. Some of the techniques described have been applied at scale to adapt previously deployed AI models, whereas in other instances, fresh solutions needed to be developed to help retailers cope with recent disruptions, such as unexpected panic buying, retraining predictive models, and leveraging online-offline synergies.

新冠疫情严重破坏了零售行业格局并加速了创新技术的采用，其中在线食品杂货订单的激增和为促进物流所采用的技术成为一个引人注目的例子。本文讨论了人工智能在新常态零售行业中为零售商提供的机遇，其中一些技术在大规模应用中适应了先前部署的人工智能模型，而另一些情况则需要开发新的解决方案来帮助零售商应对最近的破坏，如意外的抢购、重新培训预测模型和利用线上线下的协同效应。

新常态下的零售分析：人工智能与COVID-19 疫情的影响