It’s hard to believe we’re already talking about the return to school, but it’s set to be a big one. In fact, this year promises to be the biggest in the last five years. The National Retail Federation expects back-to-school spending to reach $37.1B , up from $33.9B last year. Back-to-college spending is also expected to rise, reaching $71B this year. This increase is buoyed by parents and students gearing up for their first in-person classes after a year of virtual learning.

The pandemic has created a unique set of circumstances that have accelerated what was already a growing trend. The shift from brick and mortar retail to a hybrid online and in-person retail experience has meant that nearly every retailer must also be an e-tailer and deliver a flawless digital shopping experience for its customers.

With the never-ending potential of technology to disrupt everyday processes, more and more industries are deciding to adapt to one exciting area of innovation today: artificial intelligence (AI). In fact, Global Industry Analysts Inc. predicts that AI will be worth 164.03 billion GBP by 2026, and here, we look at four industries set to be disrupted by AI. Since the healthcare sector collects and greatly depends on personal data from their patients, AI will play a crucial role in data management.

Leading retailers have an ambitious vision for what data and connectivity can do in the physical shopping space, and brick-and-mortar retail is already rapidly transforming the shopping experience with technologies such as IoT, VR, AI and cloud computing.

Five worthy reads is a regular column on five noteworthy items we’ve discovered while researching trending and timeless topics. This week we explore the rising scope of location intelligence in improving the overall customer experience.

Power BI (Business Intelligence) is a business analytics platform/service provided by Microsoft. This service aims to provide interactive visualizations and business intelligence, enabling the end-user to create individualized reports and dashboards independently. Especially for retail businesses, Power BI helps them meet the dynamic customer demands in advance with actionable insights. Microsoft Power BI service is based on cloud service, which also offers a desktop-based interface.

In an expanded and commercial industry space new and innovative opportunities are presented to retail organizations from several novel sources of data, log files, and from transaction information to sensor data to achieve unmatched value and combative advantage in their respective fields. In order to attain customer satisfaction and to flourish their business, people across the organization must be empowered, so that swift and accurate decisions can be attained.

Digital transformation is driving industries to evolve to new dimensions. Mixed reality is one of the key components in the digital reality trends that business sectors a rapidly capitalizing into. It is reshaping almost every conventional way that retailers do business. Many industrial trajectories are responding immediately to give more experiential customer experience with reality technologies such as Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality.

“Engineering” and “creativity” aren’t often considered synonymous. However, in today’s world, where the online experience is at the forefront of virtually all business transactions and experiences, the creative engineer is finally getting the recognition they deserve. These individuals are quite literally building the virtual world we live in.

In January, PagerDuty brought together retail executives in EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) who wanted to better understand how technology can build an exciting future for retail in the wake of the pandemic.