Shoe and accessories retailer ALDO is working on establishing its own internal AI foundations amidst the hype surrounding artificial intelligence. The company recently organized a Retail Gen AI Hackathon in collaboration with McGill University and Amazon Web Services. ALDO plans to revamp its search functions and enhance product recommendations using machine learning and generative AI. The company has been collecting data for the past five years, including customer patterns from website clicks and in-store purchases.

ALDO aims to leverage this data for various insights, such as demand forecasting and sale optimization. The company is also focused on maintaining data privacy and relies on its own first-party data for AI applications. While AI adoption is a growing trend, it remains to be seen whether companies can effectively incorporate generative AI and machine learning into their processes. The key is to remain flexible as AI evolves to reveal its most efficient use cases.