AI assistants in retail industry

In July 2026, CJ Olive Young in South Korea launched an AI‑driven multilingual shopping assistant for customers in flagship stores, offering product information, stock checks, navigation help and personalized skin‑care recommendations in eight languages. The system also captures usage data for operational insights.

Later that month, German firm COSYS introduced an AI assistant embedded in its retail‑management software. This tool enables store personnel to query daily operational data—such as task completion, returns, inventory movements and shipping performance—using natural language, receiving instant visualisations and brief analyses without manual report building.

Together the snapshots illustrate a broader trend of retailers deploying AI assistants for both front‑end customer engagement and back‑office data analysis, expanding AI’s role in improving efficiency and experience across the global retail sector.