Top 10 AI companies re-shaping the world of retail

Founded in 2010 by Boris Sofman, Mark Patucci and Hanns Tappeiner, this robotics and AI startup made a huge impact by outdoing their own overdrive racetrack to release Cozmo.

Cozmo is an adorable robot toy that makes a healthy profit for Anki in sales. But the vision doesn’t end at the release and success of this robot. CEO Boris Sofman believes the toy could be a precursor to a more successful house robots, bomb-disposal robots and autonomous vehicle.

"What Cozmo is is the beginnings of interface with characters where you have a character and personality-driven little being that’s going to evolve a huge amount through both software and hardware", said Sofman on the topic of upcoming AI in retail.

Blue Yonder is focused on using AI to automate the process of tech industry retail. They aid retailers and pinpoint the keys to higher revenues, increased margins and fast and efficient reactions to a constantly changing market.

Founded in 2008 in Germany by former CERN researcher professor Michael Feindt, Blue Yonder has taken a pretty scientific approach to be the leading provider of cloud-based predictive applications for retailers.

To see our "Ask this Expert" segment with professor Michael Feindt click here.

Another company focused on the optimisation and growth of other companies through the power of AI, Infinite Analytics is set on maximising sales and engagement by discovering rich insights, identifying the right customers and expanding their clients' exposure across all channels.

Founded by its CEO and CTO, Akash Bhatia and Purushotham Botla, Infinite Analytics' target is an approach of customer segmentation and targeting. Analysing layers and layers of data to understand exactly what kind of customer should be advertised to, ensuring optimal engagement.

Sentient's main focus rests in digital marketing, ecommerce and finance. The key for them was to combine several AI disciplines to form autonomous products customers would find trustworthy.

CEO and co-founded Babak Hodjat vouches to, "continue to build out our truly intelligent system, looking to new scientific fields like artificial life to develop AI concepts that will enable organizations and individuals worldwide to see more, decide better and act faster".

A visionary in Digital Experience Platform, BloomReach is an open and intelligent platform that is set to build, personalise and drive traffic toward experiences sought out by clients.

Acquiring the Amsterdam-based content management software company Hippo in 2016, BloomReach continue to build up their reputation of guarantors of SEO optimisation, role-based analytics and content and page management.

On top of providing their services as a business, BloomReach have taken the extra step of offering training and certification, allowing people to take more from the company as a skillset rather than a one-off service.

As their website says, CloudMinds are, "The world's first cloud robot operator". Robots, AI, smart devices and pretty much anything with a slight technological complexity or autonomy will find itself connected to all other machines through CloudMinds' Cloud AI.

The vision is to anticipate the affordable household robot market, done so by company founder Bill Huang, who has amassed world-class scientists, engineers, business leaders and medical experts. All to the future household environment will flow holistically.

SoundHound is at the forefront of integrating AI and sound and voice detection. Originally focused on their SoundHound app, the company offered a fast and immersive way of discovering music through AI.

SoundHound has also unveiled Houndify, an innovative new way of integrating voice and conversation intelligence into customers' products. Now different technologies can become more humanised through the power of linguistic nuance Houndify brings to AI.

"When you speak to Siri, first your voice becomes text then it gets converting to meaning", said CEO Keyvan Mohajer, explaining how the two independent processes slowed the app down. Soundhound offers to convert voices to text and interpret meaning at the same time, leaving for a more efficient and swift interaction with AI.

Founded in 2014, Ravelin is a fraud prevention startup that works tirelessly with machine learning models to anticipate and confront new threats every day.

Working with companies such as Deliveroo and JustEat, Ravelin offers different services to replace ageing systems, map client data and use databases to find fraudulent content and addresses.

Ravelin's main involvement is in the ecommerce and payment service provider sectors, always researching to be aware of any new approaches to fraud and theft of digital currencies.

Famously known for its processors, Intel is trying to advance the technological standard of the world, promising a ubiquity of the Internet of Things, always-on 5G connectivity and an approachable cloud system.

Intel's worldview pushes the company to make its products reach the same technological standard it has for all its other areas, meaning much of their innovations make it to their products before other companies. This makes for an anomalous opportunity to be a leading brand in retail while the focus is AI innovation.

"We need to foster the innovation and allow it to grow. We are at the beginning stages of artificial intelligence", said CEO Brian Krzanich in opposition to regulating AI. His vision is synonymous with giving AI the space to bloom freely in retail.

Revolutionaries in cybersecurity, Deep Instinct uses the power of deep learning to work with prediction models and face threats from all corners of the digital world.

Offering real-time omni-cyber protection, non intrusive technology and high detection rates, Deep Learning assures the absolute safety of its customers and clients through adding a human side to their AI (constantly re-shaping and re-thinking AI to combat the most recent threats viruses and hackers have to offer).