Five of the Best: AI Case Studies Transforming Retail in 2025

If 2024 was the year retailers began seriously exploring what AI could do, 2025 became the year they demanded evidence. Across the industry, leaders are shifting from experimentation to accountability — looking for AI applications that deliver real growth, meaningful efficiencies, and better experiences for customers and colleagues.

For this year’s World Retail Congress end-of-year report, True has selected six standout AI case studies that demonstrate exactly that. Spanning the core pillars of retail operations – Organisation & People, Supply Chain, Merchandising, Store Operations, and Customer Experience – these examples show how AI is already unlocking growth, deepening customer understanding, empowering frontline teams, and accelerating innovation. Together, they represent the clearest signal yet of where value is being created today and how retailers can position themselves for the decade ahead.

1. Organisation, People & Finance: Palm x On

Palm is an AI intelligence layer that sits on top of existing treasury systems; it provides retailers real-time visibility over cash flow, investments and working capital. For fast-growing global brands like On, this solves the problem of fragmented financial data and unpredictable liquidity. Since implementing Palm, On has unlocked over US$350 million in additional cash investments, enabling smarter capital allocation and stronger financial resilience. The 2025 rollout cements Palm as a strategic financial-operations partner for On.

2. Supply Chain, Sourcing & Fulfilment: Zip x Dollar Tree

Zip offers a unified procurement orchestration platform that streamlines requests, approvals, sourcing and spend visibility across non-product categories. By replacing fragmented, manual procurement processes, Zip gave Dollar Tree real-time control and transparency over its $5B+ non-product spend. Since implementation, Dollar Tree achieved a 70% reduction in procurement cycle times, influenced more than 40% of previously unmanaged spend, and realised $125 million in supported savings through smarter renewals and renewals optimisations. 

3. Product, Merchandising & Retail Media: Peak AI x Footasylum

Peak AI provides a decision-intelligence platform that helps fashion retailers optimise pricing, forecasting and product allocation by analysing customer behaviour, product performance and real-time demand signals. The approach improves trading agility and reduces the risk of under- or over-buying. Footasylum reported a 10-15% revenue uplift in targeted categories after adopting Peak, and in 2025 expanded the partnership to integrate AI-driven pricing, replenishment and merchandising decisions across more of the business.

4. Stores & Retail Operations:  Augmodo x Chemist Warehouse

Augmodo provides wearable SmartBadge cameras that use computer vision to detect out-of-stocks, misplacements and planogram issues as store staff walk the aisles. This passive approach improves shelf visibility, speeds replenishment and has delivered up to a 30% improvement in on-shelf availability. In 2025, Augmodo secured a major partnership with Chemist Warehouse, moving from pilots to a planned rollout across 550+ stores to enhance store execution and availability.

5. Customer, Channels & Experience: OpenAI x Walmart

Walmart’s Sparky is a generative-AI shopping agent that helps customers plan, discover and buy products through natural conversation, reducing friction for multi-item missions like events or meal prep. Early industry analysis suggests AI-led shopping journeys drive ~10% higher engagement than traditional browsing. In parallel, Walmart is integrating ChatGPT with instant checkout, enabling customers to shop directly through OpenAI’s interface. In 2025, Walmart also began trialling in-chat ads, exploring sponsored prompts as a new retail-media format.

These six examples reflect a pivotal moment for retail: AI is no longer an edge experiment or innovation showcase, it is becoming an operational engine. The technologies delivering the strongest results share common characteristics: they integrate seamlessly into existing workflows, address real commercial pain points, scale quickly, and create measurable financial impact.

As retailers look ahead to 2030, one thing is clear: the value of AI is already real, tangible and accelerating. And this is only the beginning. In our full report, we will be sharing a broader set of case studies that showcase how technology is driving meaningful, sustained value across every part of the retail enterprise.

References

Palm x On: Palm Technologies, “Palm × On Case Study,” https://www.usepalm.com/case-studies/on-case-study

Zip x Dollar Tree: ZipHQ, “Dollar Tree Achieves Enterprise-wide Spend Visibility with Zip,” https://ziphq.com/customer-stories/dollar-tree

Peak AI x Footasylum: Peak AI, “Footasylum Achieves Double-Digit Revenue Uplift Using Peak,” https://peak.ai/hub/success-story/footasylum/

Augmodo x Chemist Warehouse: Retail Tech Innovation Hub, “Augmodo Snags Chemist Warehouse Partnership,” https://retailtechinnovationhub.com/home/2025/3/31/augmodo-snags-chemist-warehouse-partnership-hires-simon-morriss-as-commercial-director-for-apac

OpenAI x Walmart: Walmart Corporate, “The Future of Shopping Is Agentic: Meet Sparky,” https://corporate.walmart.com/news/2025/06/06/walmart-the-future-of-shopping-is-agentic-meet-sparky; Retail TouchPoints, “Walmart Becomes Latest Retailer to Join ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout,” https://www.retailtouchpoints.com/topics/digital-commerce/walmart-becomes-latest-retailer-to-join-chatgpts-instant-checkout; Investing.com/Wall Street Journal, “Walmart Tests Ads in AI Shopping Assistant Sparky,” https://uk.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/walmart-tests-ads-in-ai-shopping-assistant-sparky--wsj-93CH-4389790; Boston Consulting Group, “Agentic Commerce: Redefining Retail — How to Respond,” https://www.bcg.com/publications/2025/agentic-commerce-redefining-retail-how-to-respond