Introduction

  • 3 minutes

Over the past few years, demands on retailers have escalated rather than diminished. The retail industry is continuously under pressure to improve. This pressure includes offering more ways to shop and deliver products, dealing with increased global supply chain challenges, and expanding customer service options. Arguably, the urgency to excel and deliver is more pronounced in retail than in any other sector.

Retail industry and key challenges

The retail industry faces many challenges in trying to ensure that the future of retail meets current consumer needs.

The retail industry continuously grapples with the issue of high employee turnover. The past few years show numerous departures from the retail industry, which suggests dissatisfaction among employees. This attrition results in significant vacancies, and filling these positions becomes a challenging task. As a result, retailers find it difficult to recruit suitable candidates for these roles.

High turnover rates have wide-ranging implications. The associated costs with hiring and training new employees can be substantial. Moreover, frequent changes in personnel can affect the morale and productivity of the entire organization. The organization can observe this high-attrition impact at all levels, from individual employees and teams to entire stores and businesses. A further complication in the high turnover issue is the yearly addition of several seasonal jobs in the retail sector. These positions require training, which is a considerable investment for short-term employees.

Often, retailers express concerns that their frontline workers lack the necessary digital tools and technologies to perform their jobs effectively. This lack of resources can lead to inefficiencies, decreased job satisfaction, and a lower level of service that they can provide to customers. It underscores the need for retail businesses to invest in digital tools and technologies that can support their frontline workers and help them perform their roles more effectively.

Retail industry and generative AI

Early findings show the potential for generative AI to transform productivity in the retail industry. Retailers turn to AI to enhance frontline productivity and empower store associates.

Implementation of generative AI leads to an overall improvement in task completion rates and a significant reduction in the time required for completing tasks. Additionally, associates can complete more subtasks, which improves the quality of responses to these subtasks.

The benefits of Generative AI for retail store operations are as follows:

  • Drives efficiency: Employees can get, create, share, visualize, and unlock the power of their retail data with a data platform designed for AI. It enhances frontline operational efficiency and job satisfaction with virtual companions and digitized processes that are powered by AI.

  • Enhances customer experience: Empowered employees with access to actionable insights can turn every interaction into an opportunity to delight customers. It delivers AI-driven shopping experiences that are personalized, guided, automated, and that gain high customer satisfaction ratings.

  • Increases productivity: Employees using AI at work experience significant time savings, allowing them to focus on their most important tasks. AI enables them to be more creative and enjoy their work more. Retailers using AI to provide real-time training and assistance to store associates see an increase in productivity and a significant improvement in employee retention rates.

Agents in Microsoft Copilot Studio

Agents are AI assistants that can help optimize business processes and enhance productivity using large language models and generative AI. Agents vary in levels of complexity and capabilities depending on your need​.

Diagram of Agent's varying level of complexity.

You can create agents in Microsoft Copilot Studio that streamline business processes, enhance customer and employee experiences, and reduce overhead costs. Copilot Studio includes several prebuilt agents to help you get started. These agents are bundled with Copilot Studio. You can create or extend agents by using generative AI, connect them to your data and services, and deploy them across your digital estate more securely, and you can do it all in one comprehensive studio. It’s the ultimate low-code conversational AI platform that empowers anyone to create, customize, and deploy intelligent copilots across multiple channels and services.

Store Operations Agent in Copilot Studio

Store Operations Agent is a prebuilt agent on Copilot Studio as a low-code, AI-powered solution with a set of configurable features tailored to your needs. Store Operations Agent in Copilot Studio streamlines the workflow of retail frontline workers with access to valuable information, such as store policies, product inventory, and shipping statuses, by integrating the relevant knowledge sources of a retail business. It acts as a single interface that connects with multiple data and information sources, enabling store employees to access the right information at the right time using natural language.

Store Operations Agent in Copilot Studio has the following key features:

  • Supports easy configuration as a Low Code solution
  • Integrates with your existing FLW application
  • Connects with multiple data and information sources

The Store Operations Agent in Copilot Studio ensures that employees are empowered in multiple ways, as shown in the following screenshot.

Screenshot showing how Store Operations Agent in Copilot Studio empowers employees.

Store Operations Agent in Copilot Studio addresses the following key challenges faced by retail businesses:

  • Efficient processes: Streamline operations by providing quick access to necessary information and automating repetitive tasks.
  • Worker productivity: Enhance productivity by reducing the time spent searching for information and enabling faster task completion.
  • Employee morale: Improve job satisfaction by empowering employees with tools that make their work easier and more efficient.
  • Data-driven decisions: Enable better decision-making by integrating various data sources and providing actionable insights.

By using large language models (LLMs) and integrating enterprise data sources, the Store Operations Agent in Copilot Studio can significantly reduce the time that employees spend searching for critical information, allowing them to focus on delivering exceptional customer service.

For IT departments, the Store Operations Agent offers a way to manage the development backlog for custom automation. It also helps them maintain disparate systems across the business by providing a unified platform that integrates various data sources and systems.

Store Operations Agent in Copilot Studio is preconfigured with Microsoft Store knowledge sources, including the Microsoft Store website and billing help pages as examples. Similarly, you can customize knowledge sources to reflect your organization’s specific policies and procedures, such as:

  • Public websites – Add public websites for real-time answers.
  • Files – Upload documents from your local computer.
  • SharePoint and OneDrive – Integrate and manage internal data more securely.
  • Dataverse (preview) – Customize and deploy structured data tables.
  • Microsoft Fabric – Accelerate data analysis with AI capabilities.

Additionally, the agent allows you to integrate custom data sources so that you can connect to your enterprise data and make it adaptable for any retail environment, such as:

  • Enterprise websites
  • Microsoft Azure SQL
  • Microsoft Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2
  • MediaWiki
  • Salesforce
  • ServiceNow Knowledge
  • File share
  • SharePoint Server
  • SAP
  • Microsoft Azure DevOps Git
  • CSV
  • Jira
  • Azure DevOps Wiki
  • Oracle SQL database
  • Microsoft SQL Server (New)
  • ServiceNow Catalog
  • Confluence
  • ServiceNow Tickets
  • Custom Connector
  • Microsoft Power Platform connector actions

With the Store Operations Agent in Copilot Studio, frontline workers can initiate actions based on system data. Additionally, it helps workers handle queries in simple language, such as "What is our return policy?" or "Help me initiate a return." It can also track inventory, check order statuses, and answer frequent questions, such as "What deals are available?"

The agent helps new employees quickly assist customers or helps them increase efficiency in their daily tasks without wasting time in searching for common answers. This flexibility makes the agent an indispensable tool for supporting the operational needs of any retail business. It also helps maintain consistency in customer service across the stores.

After the agent publishes, you can deploy it on multiple platforms or channels, allowing team members to interact with it directly in a familiar environment. These platforms include live websites, mobile apps, and messaging platforms, such as Microsoft Teams and Facebook. The Store Operations Agent in Copilot Studio empowers retail staff by providing quick, intuitive access to the knowledge that they need to succeed.

Responsible AI FAQs for the solution

Responsible AI FAQs are part of a broader effort to put Microsoft AI principles into practice. They aim to provide insights into the workings of AI technology, the decisions that can affect its performance and behavior, and the significance of considering the entire system, including the technology, people, and environment. We recommend that you use these FAQs to gain a deeper understanding of specific AI systems and features developed by Microsoft.

To learn about the AI capabilities and impact of specific features of this solution, see FAQ for Store Operations Agent in Copilot Studio.