Sponsored: Unleashing the benefits of AI-as-a-Service in retail
Hyper personalisation using generative AI can result in additional business opportunities and improved speed.
01 June 2025
In the retail business, AI can assist business owners to free up time, enhance efficiencies, communicate with customers, and personalise your service.
“No retailer has a vast team of AI scientists at their disposal to create this,” Dr. Prince Abudu – Head of Technology: AI at Cassava Technologies explains. “However, AI as a service is now available, tailored to the needs and demands of your specific retail business.”
Cassava Technologies have partnered with Nvidia to launch The AI Factory, a specialised powerhouse of AI enterprise software. Specifically designed for AI computing in Africa, it allows personalised AI applications to be built and scaled at a much faster speed.
“Enabling AI as a service across the continent will be transformative for African businesses,” Abudu emphasises. “Retail is one of the industries where there are huge gains to be made by using AI.”
Hyper personalisation using generative AI can result in additional business opportunities and improved speed. AI can assist your retail business by referring to each customer’s purchasing history and recommending their preferred products and brands to save them time, as well as notifying them about new or related products.
“Chatbots can provide information to customers in real time, helping to optimise your back office and streamline your communications,” Abudu explains. “With generative AI, you can gain new ideas in product design and imagery, as well as descriptive text, allowing you to bring new products to market faster and more affordably.”
Another benefit the AI Factory offers is a language-based app. AI that can speak the language of your clients helps people who prefer voice prompts to typing, and makes your retail business more inclusive.
AI can revolutionise the processes of indexing products, tracking orders, and stock management, as well as communicating all of this to customers via a chatbot. If someone makes a purchase, the AI assistant will keep them informed about whether it is in stock, when it is shipped, when it is due to be delivered. The order can be created automatically with no human involved, and this reduces the footprint you need in terms of human capacity.
“Theft and shrinkage is always a problem for retail businesses, whether in a physical store or a warehouse, AI can coordinate camera footage, detect the areas where theft occurs, and intelligently manage different stores and layouts,” Abudu says.
“AI can also analyse the unique shopping patterns that your customers follow in different cities, or even different suburbs. This enables more accurate stock management, as well as better analytics predicting what people are likely to order in the next week, the next month, or during a popular shopping season. Understanding these store-level metrics and making the most of them can make a huge difference to sales, and AI is capable of doing this faster and more efficiently.” This talks to forecasting and replenishment.
“As a retailer, you collect a lot of data on your customers, their habits and preferences,” Abudu says. “AI can unlock new insights, helping you predict what will trend, and realise the best possible value from your sales offering.”
The AI Factory enables retailers to own a personalised model, which you download onto your own servers. This ensures that it is compliant with data sovereignty regulations, and because you own the data, customers have the option to opt in or out. The data is safe and protected because the models are localised. “At Cassava AI, a business of Cassava Technologies, we focus on software that will optimise your services and solve your problems,” Abudu explains. “AI as a service is capable of revolutionising your retail business without you needing to invest a substantial amount of capex.”