How Artificial Intelligence Is Evolving In Business Productivity

8th July 2025

For a while now, Artificial Intelligence has been a hot topic across all industries, and at this year’s Retail Technology Show, we saw how it’s evolving from simply being something everyone talks about to something that is creating new solutions.

One solution is deploying AI when big data sets are used, which leads to better resource management and, therefore, improved productivity. For example:

• For workload drivers, AI provides better accuracy for shaping when colleague hours are most required, by forecasting data such as customer numbers and flow
• In food production planning, AI helps optimise sales and minimise waste. An example of this is when a sushi company deployed camera and AI technology to track production and sales volumes of prepared dishes offered on a self-selection belt
• Optimising deployment of specialist resources. One example is planning when health services operate clinics that require scarce professional cover

We are also seeing the establishment of AI data businesses. Rather than being industry or sector-specific, they are data and AI specialists who know how to apply AI tools to help organisations review their available data sets and identify where value can be delivered.

AI will, undoubtedly, have a huge impact across all areas, but current top targets for bespoke AI applications look set to be:

• Improving forecast accuracy
• Reducing waste
• Optimising deployment of specialist resources

These will work alongside current accessible business tools, such as Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Co-pilot, tools which support personal productivity improvements.

How ReThink use AI

At ReThink, we are exploring AI across all fronts, by;

• Increasing our use of Gemini within our Google business toolset
• Starting to use Large Language Models to drive a new level of insight from the data recorded by our analysts
• Our in-house data experts are exploring additional opportunities to deploy AI within our data sets
• Working in partnership with the University of Portsmouth on our second Knowledge Transfer Partnership (read about our first KTP here)

If you want to find out more about how we are using AI and how to improve your business’ productivity, please contact us to arrange a call.