The Convenience Leaders Vision Group (CLVG) has released its Vision Report, “Lead the Future: Transformative AI Strategies”, about successful AI implementation to maximize benefits while minimizing the risks.
The CLVG quarterly meeting on January 31, 2025, was facilitated by Myra Kressner, president, Kressner Strategy Group and Vision Group Network co-founder. The meeting featured a presentation from Greg Buzek, president and chief AI officer of IHL Group.
This eye-opening discussion emphasized the urgency for convenience retailers to adopt AI, along with a strong emphasis on the need for strategic, data-driven approaches to implementing these technologies. Focus needs to be on data cleanliness, alignment with business goals, and a willingness to experiment and adapt. Retailers who invest wisely in AI and prioritize data will gain a competitive edge, while those who hesitate risk falling behind, as AI will soon be as ubiquitous in business as the internet, and its impact will be profound, according to Buzek.
Key takeaways in the report include:
- The AI Race in Retail: Convenience retailers are lagging behind other retail segments in AI investment with only ten percent of their IT budgets allocated to AI, while many struggle with poor data quality and unclear strategies. Despite these challenges, AI is already transforming inventory management, pricing, and customer service, and retailers who invest wisely starting with better data will gain a competitive edge in an evolving market.
- Start Smart, Scale Fast: Retailers should focus on identifying their biggest business needs and prioritizing AI investments accordingly. Smaller retailers with clean data can begin with merchandising and supply chain optimization. Mark Samuels, executive vice president of convenience retailing at Dash In (The Wills Group) said: “One of the things that we’re doing in accounting, as an example, is using AI to sort and process invoices for someone that used to manually do it. As a first step, efficiency is the goal for a lot of companies and not necessarily driving sales.”
- AI Runs on Smart Data: Data quality is important for successful AI implementation. Retailers need to prioritize data cleaning, consolidation, and storage solutions. “Earlier this week in [a meeting] with Retail Industry Leaders, RILA, someone there said, as retailers thinking about approaching AI, we really don’t need an AI strategy. The way you should think about it is to have a business strategy and think about how you can leverage AI to help you more effectively execute your business strategy,” said Darren Rebelez, CEO, Casey’s General Stores.
- Automate, Don’t Replace: The goal of AI implementation should be to enable employees to perform at a higher level, not to replace jobs. Companies should automate tasks that employees dislike to showcase AI’s benefits. Annie St. Romain Gauthier, CFO/Co-CEO at Y-Not Stop – St. Romain Oil shared, “We feel like the better we can get it operating and executing in our operations every day, that’s where we get our edge right now. So that’s where we’re focused.”
- Powering Up for AI’s Impact: Retailers need to rethink their store infrastructure and operations to accommodate AI. Buzek suggested that backup generators are a critical consideration for store planning to handle the additional computing power. Plaid Pantry’s CEO Jonathan Polonsky shared how AI adoption in his business would likely focus more on backend efficiency, given that most of his stores operate with just one associate at a time. He acknowledged that AI would inevitably become embedded in third-party tools and vendor systems, meaning, “Ergo, we will be using it. Sometimes we’ll know that we are, and sometimes we won’t.”
