Category: Artificial Intellegence

Remodista Heads to CES for High Tech REtailing

1/14/2019

We had an exciting few days at CES 2019 with the High Tech Retailing team. With quite a bit of ground to cover, we barely scratched the surface with 2.9 million square feet of exhibit hall. We're already preparing for next year.

CES showcases more than 4,500 exhibiting companies...a conference program with more than 250 conference sessions and more than 180K attendees from 150 countries.

- CES Website

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

Robotics are a hot topic across retail, manufacturing and so much more. While we've seen them primarily used in rudimentary ways in the past, the addition of artificial intelligence is giving them new life. Although the robots we encountered at the show were large prototypes or in miniature, there was variety, entertainment, and potential for all types of business scenarios.

Kelly Stickel and Maureen Jann on the hunt to find robots

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

The innovation was really popping in the High Tech Retailing area. It was exciting to see all of the ways IoT and artificial intelligence were impacting new products in a highly intentional way.

YouCam Makeup has a set of AI tools that recommends foundation, makeup and hair products with solid results from users and their experience. Proctor and Gamble launched a skin advisor platform that uses artificial intelligence offering customers skincare advice.

CES 2019 in Pictures

We captured a selection of images we thought best represented CES. From Robots, to a sea of humanity, the offerings were rich on the showroom floor. Outside were temporary buildings that showcased even more vendors. Google's temporary building was impressive, no doubt in an attempt to draw attention back to the frequently criticized Google Assistant.
More smart appliances are being rolled out and the technology of retail is getting richer and richer.

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