Women at CES
Historically, CES has had a total of zero women giving keynotes. They're not alone. According to Bloomberg, even in 2018 "male conference speakers and panelists outnumber women 2-to-1." We're delighted to report that this year four of the nine keynotes were women. We also had the pleasure of seeing our very own Kelly Stickel moderating a panel on the High Tech Retailing track. We're looking forward to seeing the trend continue. Attracting women leaders to the show will likely increase the woman attendees.
Along with Kelly Stickel, we spotted another Woman2Watch on stage. We interviewed Michelle Grant, analyst for Euromonitor, about her session and the challenges she sees retailers facing. Take a look at the video!
Interview with Michelle Grant of Euromonitor a 2016 W2W Innovation Award Winner
Robotics at CES
OMRON offered a huge showcase of robotics and came as a surprise to us. Typically a manufacturer of control equipment, factory automation systems, electronic components, automotive electronics, ticket vending machines and medical equipment, they rolled out the red carpet for their bot extravaganza. An example of their offerings included a ping pong playing robot to show off dexterity and spontaneous processing. Then they shared the real life business experience that would use the same interaction. Since context is so often a barrier with new technology, we felt it was a really smart way to educate people about how a robot could be used to tangibly change your business.
Horizon Robotics showed crowd identification on huge monitors. Their AI was identifying people in a large crowd. We watched the people around us become identified by number, then by age and by sex. All it had to go on was our physical features. We felt there were huge retail opportunities here. Think about a customer walking into a room, interacting with a display that serves discounts and directions to their best selling products for this demographic category. As large as the potential is, there are massive pitfalls to this approach as well. With the increase of non-gender specific population, the sensitivity and nuance needs to be dialed up to ensure we're serving younger generations in a meaningful way.
And who can go on a robot hunt and not be delighted to run into a dancing robot? LG has mini robots that connects and interacts with your IOT devices in home. It also allows you to customize your experience. It may do similar functions as Alexa, but it's far cuter. Artificial Intelligence and Retail Beauty
CES 2019 in Pictures
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