RETAIL & CONSUMER GOODS governance frameworks. Agent365 ensures partners can build AI agents that operate safely and consistently across stores and regions. “Our partners are focused on outcomes, not technology,” explains Miller. “They give retailers the breadth, speed and intelligence to lead the market, not with one monolithic system but with a composable, continuously innovating system of intelligence powered by the IQs. They bring playbooks and value engineering that tie IQ-powered solutions to concrete business results.” Miller suggests retailers judge success by measuring how quickly they move from signal to decision and from decision to impact. “When autonomous systems resolve more operational issues on their own, it reflects more than efficiency gains,” she explains. “The enterprise becomes significantly more responsive to events as they unfold in real time.” Trust is another key metric. Retailers must have confidence in the agents supporting their operations, which requires them to evaluate forecast accuracy, recommendation acceptance rates, override frequency and audit transparency. Consistently correct and documented decisions allow organisations to integrate AI more deeply into daily operations. “The most meaningful measure of success may be how quickly the organisation itself learns,” says Miller. “Using Enterprise IQ, retailers should observe how rapidly models improve, how many processes transition to agent-driven execution and how quickly new use cases can be deployed. If a capability that previously required six months to launch can now be delivered in six weeks, it signals a step change in the enterprise’s ability to innovate and adapt, which is the ultimate definer of success.” Miller believes the gap between retail innovators and laggards will widen in the next few years. “Leaders will build a real-time, data backbone that brings operational and external signals into one platform,” she says. “They will also deliver decisioning services through reusable APIs and collaborate across supply ecosystems with partners and logistics providers. Stores and distribution centres will become more event-driven environments where signals trigger actions automatically. The most effective organisations will build carbon awareness and compliance into operational planning, so environmental impact becomes part of everyday trade-offs rather than an afterthought. Success ultimately depends on people and organisational design, not just on technology.” To ensure today’s investments support tomorrow’s needs, retailers should prioritise strong foundations, building for composability, with open APIs, event-driven systems and clean, shareable data. This will enable capabilities to evolve and integrate over time, creating continuous learning loops, where each release improves the system’s intelligence. “We are entering the first era where the enterprise itself can learn, and that changes everything,” says Miller. “AI is often discussed in terms of efficiency, speed or cost, but its real impact is enabling organisations to continuously learn and adapt. The retailers that succeed will design for compounding intelligence, shift leaders from operating the business to setting direction while intelligent systems handle the micro-decisions and prioritise adaptability above any single metric. Ultimately, adaptability will define the retailers that lead the next era of intelligent enterprise.” FEATURE Kraft Heinz Company is piloting the AI agent Cookbook at a US production facility with the aim of monitoring and analysing batch thickness and colour Photo: Dhanika Vansia 110
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