The emergence of artificial intelligence has been one of the biggest stories of the 2020s.
While modern machine learning began to take shape in the early 2000s, recent investments and developments have propelled AI to new heights. The technology is now used by consumers to do everything ranging from making shopping lists to finding more precise answers to difficult questions.
Retailers, of course, have taken major steps toward implementing AI in one aspect of their business or another. A recent survey from AI technology provider Nvidia found that 91% of retailers and CPG companies are either actively using or assessing AI. Companies noted that AI is helping decrease annual costs (95%) and increase annual revenue (89%).
The commercial real estate world is also beginning to utilize the emerging technology in a number of ways – with only more integration expected in the coming years as AI continues to evolve and become more precise.
“What AI means today and into the future is being able to make better, smarter decisions quicker,” said Stephen Polanski, global business director at retail intelligence firm Kalibrate, speaking at a panel at the recent ICSC show in New York City. “Adoption will be key, and we still need human interaction to be able to maximize those decision making processes.”
Below is an except from Chain Store Age’s latest Top Tech Tools feature that included an interview with Dustin Stancil.
Kalibrate feature – Dustin Stancil
Kalibrate is another location intelligence platform that leverages AI to give its users – whether they be in the retail, hospitality, banking or fuel industries – the most accurate customer dataset possible.
Using survey data from 2024, Kalibrate developed its proprietary AI model to offer insights and analysis faster results, speeding up development timelines and decision making.
“We heard overwhelmingly from executives that AI isn’t just expected from their team members, it’s going to be expected from their vendors as well,” said Dustin Stancil, senior VP of location intelligence at Kalibrate. “We have been leveraging AI tools for quite a while now. But while traditional geospatial analytics tools are effective, what our end users wanted was to reduce the number of clicks it takes to find an answer. We wanted to slowly put AI into our intelligence tools to make them easy to grasp, and then take feedback from there and build on top of that.”
To meet customer needs, Kalibrate introduced the K.AI chatbot companion to assist with the data search process, as well as AI summaries of a trade are based on specific attributes, such as demographics like income, age or education. Using the chatbot, users can compare locations and ask which would be the best location for a new store or restaurant.
Kalibrate also uses AI to summarize sales forecast reports, giving users a better sense of the financial prospects for a future location. By utilizing advanced technology, Kalibrate clients can get the best insights available when making real estate decisions, whether it be expansion or rightsizing a portfolio, either on a DMA, state-wide or nationwide level.
“Through forecasting capabilities that we build for customers, we can run projections on potential sites to see what will be a good fit for the brand,” said Stancil. “Guests can ask us ‘how many locations could we fit in Palm Beach County, or the greater Los Angeles area?’ We help come up with those answers and target opportunities.”
In the future, Kalibrate aims to continue using new developments in AI to hone in even further on location intelligence.
“AI has moved at such a rapid pace,” said Stancil. “We want to be able to shift more towards the agentic side, which includes asking specific questions like ‘can you suggest three store locations for me in Dallas, Texas, or in Wilson, N.C.,’ and have it be able to spit out an answer for you that is logical and that takes into account both internal data and third-party data.”
Want to learn more about AI in location intelligence?
Jump to this blog to see several use cases in action within the Kalibrate Location Intelligence platform.
