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It’s peak holiday shopping season and there’s not much time left to check everyone off your holiday shopping list — especially if you’re ordering presents online. 

As you focus on the buying, have you ever thought about the steps it takes for that gift to reach your front door on time? It turns out that artificial intelligence has a significant and growing role in retail supply chains.  

, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management, joined Cathy Wurzer on Morning Edition to share how AI informs and aids the holiday shopping season. 

Faced with billions of product options and store combinations, buyers can leverage AI to help predict the best products. 

“You can think of it as the winners and the losers, and then ultimately try to trim down that 2 billion to the very most important ones that the human would ultimately review,” Steele said. 

But there are still limitations for AI; it needs historical data and lacks personal information that a human may get, for instance, from a conversation with a wholesaler. That allows humans to still add value. 

“When you think about deploying AI versus the human interacting, a big question is: Are your humans making decisions based on useful information, or are they changing AI recommendations based on, say, a personal relationship?” Steele continued. 

Most AI usage is under the hood, or in the backroom, for now, he said. However, 

consumers still may experience AI in shopping with functions like chatbots or shopping assistants on websites

Listen to the complete conversation by clicking the player button above.

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Dayton Steele, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management, joined Cathy Wurzer on Morning Edition to share how AI informs and aids the holiday shopping season.

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AI's role in holiday shopping is mostly under the hood, for now, researcher says

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