AI is shaping the future of retail

Patrick O’Leary has spent over two decades in retail technology, from pioneering RFID deployments at Sensormatic to exploring AI solutions at Dragonfruit. He now leads SAI Group’s North American expansion.

In a recent interview with TalkLPnews, he says “I’ve had the privilege of being part of several technology revolutions in retail. RFID changed inventory management. Self-checkout changed customer experience. I believe SAI Group is going to change everything.”

At SAI Group, Pat sees a company that has not only addressed AI efficiency challenges but has developed versatile solutions applicable across all store departments. This blog summarizes his views on how SAI Group’s visual AI platform is well placed to transform the retail industry’s operations.

What makes SAI Group stand out

According to Pat, SAI Group differentiates itself through:

• Cost-effectiveness: Pat feels that SAI’s ability to run AI models on standard hardware, eliminating the need for expensive GPUs, offers a significant advantage to retail chains. This drastically reduces retailers’ operational costs and enables fast returns on investment—often seeing payback within weeks.
• Broad utility: SAI solves multiple issues—inventory management, theft prevention, safety, and operational problems—all through one system.
• Proven performance: With more than 800 stores and over a million daily transactions, SAI's impact is measurable and substantial.

Avoiding the need for human intervention

Unlike legacy systems that rely on human checks, SAI’s autonomous AI actively prevents issues in real time. For instance, SAI Group’s visual AI platform sends a “soft nudge” when it detects any anomaly at the self-checkout, enabling customers to take corrective action without any intervention from the store staff. By preventing lost inventory with minimal human involvement, SAI Group’s visual AI platform is a leap forward in loss prevention and operational automation.

Real-world scenarios in retail

Retail teams benefit from SAI’s visual AI platform in several ways:
Loss prevention: Self-checkout fraud and shoplifting detection across the store’s aisles.

• Safety: By reducing the need for intervention by the staff, SAI Group’s AI platform enhances safety for the store staff.
• Financial results: SAI Group’s cost-effective solution enables quicker ROI.
• Organized crime tracking: By enabling monitoring and addressing retail crime across locations, SAI Group’s visual AI platform can enable setting up a coordinated defence against organized crime.

Pat is convinced that today’s AI is reliable, scalable, and effective at solving practical problems. SAI Group’s solutions are embedded in daily operations, offering tangible impacts.

He feels retailers considering AI need to focus on:

• Real-world outcomes and scalability.
• Total cost of ownership.
• Piloting projects with an eye toward enterprise deployment.

About SAI

As a leader in computer vision technology, SAI Group delivers cutting-edge, multi-modal AI solutions into retail environments. Using a unique platform approach, its technology uses existing camera systems to target losses, increase store safety, and underpin operational efficiencies.

All solutions are built from the ground up to ensure the highest levels of security and data protection, respecting the privacy expectations of the public and operating to stringent ethical standards while delivering substantial value to our clients. Globally, SAI monitors millions of transactions per day, protecting the revenues from tens of millions of product sales and hundreds of millions of customer interactions. Its models also accurately identify anti-social behaviour, aggression and violence, helping to de-escalate situations with real-time interfaces to security officers and operations centres.