here are the stand out retail technology plays from March — Retail Technology Innovation Hub

M&S

M&S reports that it is giving its store managers and support centre colleagues AI and Agentic AI tools, with the aim of making tasks like accessing data and analysis quicker and simpler, freeing up time to focus on customers and colleagues.

The retailer is purchasing 11,000 Microsoft 365 Copilot licences, supported by a training and development programme. A partnership with Microsoft is supporting the use of AI at scale across the organisation.

M&S CEO Stuart Machin says: “We’re already embedding AI across M&S – supporting stock forecasting and ordering, generating marketing materials, and powering a colleague help hub with AI agents. Now 11,000 colleagues will have AI support at their fingertips, pulling together summaries from multiple sources and giving them the data, analytics and insights they need in seconds.”

“As we reshape M&S for growth, scaling the use of AI is central to our technology transformation and today’s announcement is just one of the steps forward on that journey.”

Decathlon

Exotec, a specialist in robotic solutions for warehouse logistics, has announced the deployment of a multi-site programme called Skyfleet for Decathlon.

This spans seven logistics platforms across five European countries: France, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Italy, and Germany.

After deploying its first Skypod robotic system at its Tilburg site in 2021, Decathlon chose to expand the partnership with a project that involved standardising store replenishment across the European continent.

Exotec developed a dedicated programme built on a harmonised, replicable, and scalable architecture; one that enables the roll-out of a standardised model while still adapting to each site’s specific requirements.

At every Decathlon site, Exotec integrates additional automated equipment to optimise intralogistics processes: automatic depalletisers, automated carton opening machines, RFID tunnels, automatic palletisers etc.

The Skyfleet programme has improved working conditions for…

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