AI in retail

The prerequisite for the development and use of AI systems in the retail sector is the availability of data and the authorisation to use this data.

Especially when it comes to the processing of personal data, i.e. data that directly or indirectly allows conclusions to be drawn about a specific or identifiable person, data protection law sets strict limits. In addition to the data protection principles of purpose limitation and data economy, there are also high hurdles in ensuring suitable technical and organisational measures are in place to protect customer data.

The use of so-called smart cams, for example to analyse the age and gender of customers, offers considerable potential for the retail sector, as this allows target group-specific products to be addressed. Even if such systems can be designed to comply with data protection regulations, acceptance within the population tends to be negative, meaning that initial tests were not continued due to the negative response.

It is true that anonymisation and the associated removal of the personal reference can circumvent the application of data protection law. However, in the retail sector in particular, it will be important to individualise the individual customer, for example to evaluate customer behaviour, create user profiles and place customer-specific advertising.

An additional challenge for the development of intelligent systems in the retail sector is the fact that there is currently no legal ownership of data, which creates considerable legal uncertainty. The willingness to share one's own data and make it available for AI applications is therefore limited. Furthermore, according to the current legal situation, there is no legally justified claim to data generated by AI systems. The co-operative development of AI systems will therefore always raise the question of who "owns" the data.

The question of the liability of AI systems will also need to be discussed. This is because unexpected unintended events can occur, especially when intelligent systems are able to acquire new knowledge and make autonomous decisions on this basis (e.g. the establishment of a contractual relationship). The use of AI systems can therefore have considerable economic consequences due to the lack of human intervention.