More Than A Trend: Responsible AI is Essential to Retail Success

An intelligent agent built to boost employee productivity. A shopping expert that can help customers choose the right tire. These are just a few examples of how the rise in artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed the way we do business. Canadian Tire's AI leaders discussed our ongoing journey in a recent article for CIO Review.

More Than A Trend: Responsible AI is Essential to Retail Successwas co-authored by our Head of AI and Emerging Technology, Cari Covent, and Associate Vice President, Applied AI and Automation, Milena Kumurdjieva. They share how our AI journey began with a problem to be solved: how to approach applying AI today. We chose to leverage AI as a versatile tool that would empower our entire organization, rather than develop a centralized capability.

The article describes the different ways that we are integrating AI into our business, like improving the shopping experience for our customers with our new digital shopping assistant CeeTee. Powered by Azure OpenAI Services, it was designed to help customers choose the right tires for their vehicle, using natural conversation to give insightful recommendations while providing real-time store inventory information and facilitating purchase. Another example of AI in action at Canadian Tire is ChatCTC, the intelligent agent that was built to boost employee productivity, which is used by close to 4,000 employees.

The article cautions that responsible integration of AI into our business strategy is essential as we continue to embrace and experiment with this exciting technology. Our Data in Action program serves to manage the risks and opportunities associated with AI, enabling us to advance our initiatives responsibly in this rapidly changing environment.

CeeTee is available on iOS for customers throughout Canada (excluding Quebec).

Read the full article here, and to learn more about our governance initiatives, check out our most recent ESG Report.