IR Technology: Transform Retail Operations with Ailet AI

The Image Recognition (IR) technology is changing the rules of the game: it turns a simple photograph into actionable insights about product availability, prices, fulfillment of promotions and even the presence of the competition. The result Trade marketing teams that stop operating blindly and start making decisions with real impact on execution and sales.

How many times have you launched a point of sale promotion without knowing if it really ran as planned? In the dynamic and ultra-competitive ecosystem of the CPG, in-store execution can no longer depend on intuitions or unreliable manual reports. Today, what separates the brands that gain ground on the shelf from those that lose investment: is access to accurate and real-time data.

Explore in this article how IR technology is redefining operational efficiency in trade marketing, reducing audit costs, speeding up in-store data collection and optimizing every dollar spent on operational expenses.

IR Technology to Reduce Business Costs

The pressure to improve operational efficiency and reduce in-store execution expenses is constant. IR (Image Recognition) technology allows an automated visual audit and has become an essential tool to reduce costs associated with visits, errors and inefficient execution at points of sale.

“Companies that adopt IR technology report savings of up to 40% in point of sale audits and a 60% reduction in data collection times”.

Through a simple photographic capture, the artificial intelligence processes and analyzes the visual information of the shelf in seconds, allowing to obtain a significant competitive advantage.

Detect products, prices, promotions and shelf conditions

IR technology makes it possible to capture, analyze and transform point-of-sale images into actionable data in a matter of seconds. With a simple photograph, you can automatically identify products on the shelf, validate prices, check active promotions and detect out-of-standard conditions such as stock failures, poorly positioned products or lack of POP material.

This eliminates human errors, ensures greater accuracy in store auditing and provides complete visibility of what is really happening at the point of sale.

The strategic planning based on data allows you to streamline decision-making, make effective changes per store, or correct routes and promotions that are not being executed efficiently. All these improvements will allow you to automatically reduce costs in your day-to-day operations.

The result Better performance indicators, greater availability in gondola, compliance with planograms and a more consistent shopping experience for the consumer.

Fewer unnecessary visits: field teams' routes become more strategic

Teams no longer need to visit each store to check the execution. With real-time data, visits are scheduled only where there are detours, maximizing the time of the field team and reducing logistical costs.

In addition, each visit made with IR technology will provide much more valuable information, less margin for error in data collection, and less time spent per point of sale.

What Ailet can offer to improve the efficiency of field teams

Our solution not only helps teams complete in-store visits accurately, but ensures those visits translate into measurable business results:

Route and Task Management: Plan the most efficient routes for your field team, reducing travel time and increasing productivity in store.
Intelligent Assignment of Tasks: Assign activities according to the needs of each store, business priorities and performance trends.
Audits with Photos: Validates the execution at the point of sale using AI-analyzed images, eliminating manual reports.
Dashboards in Real Time: Monitor execution, compliance, stock levels and team performance in a single view.
Full Store Coverage: From product presence and price monitoring to POP material placement and planogram compliance, everything is managed on a single platform.

Lower loss due to incorrect execution

Poor execution at the point of sale represents one of the most costly leaks for mass consumer brands: poorly placed promotions, misplaced products or erroneous prices can generate direct loss of sales, buyer distrust and commercial penalties.

Ailet's IR technology significantly reduces this risk by automatically validating, and in real time, whether each element of the trading strategy is fulfilled as agreed. From the detection of errors in the placement of products to the absence of promotional materials or inappropriate price tags.

The system acts as a "digital auditor”, ensuring that each campaign, promotion or planogram is fulfilled correctly, which alerts the commercial teams so that they can analyze and correct before the deviation translates into an economic loss. This preventive and automated capacity ensures that your area has a higher return and less exposure to human error.

If you want to know more about how to implement new technologies to monitor and automate your trade marketing strategy, request a demo.

Concrete Applications of AI to improve the Efficiency of Commercial Execution

The implementation of IR technology with artificial intelligence not only allows controlling the execution in store, but also enables a new level of commercial efficiency.

Automating key processes such as auditing, the price collection or the compliance control; frees up time, reduces errors and improves operational accuracy.

Here we show you how the AI for retail applied with Ailet, transforms the daily routines of sales teams into more agile, intelligent and impactful actions.

Real-time audit with photos: more data, less time

Traditionally, an in-store audit could take between 30 and 60 minutes, depending on the number of SKUs, categories or promotions to be reviewed. With Ailet, this process is reduced to less than 5 minutes: a single photograph of the shelf activates an automated analysis that delivers instant results on product presence, planogram compliance, prices and promotions.

This change not only reduces time, but also exponentially increases the number of points of sale that can be audited per day. In addition, the data obtained is centralized in dashboards accessible in real time, which allows corrective decisions to be made with agility and without relying on manual reports.

Efficiency of the commercial force

With IR technology, the sales team stops being a data collector and becomes a strategic executor. Armed with an intelligent mobile app, each commercial representative can validate the execution, report deviations and prioritize corrections during the same visit, without delays or paperwork.

This improves their productivity, but also increases the value of time in the field. By eliminating repetitive tasks, such as manual data collection or visual validations, staff focus on what really matters: improving visibility, negotiating additional space and ensuring a consistent shopping experience.

Collection of Data from Shelves and Points of Sale in Real Time

One of the great challenges of trade marketing is to have updated and reliable data to make agile decisions. AI for retail solves this problem by transforming images into processed and ready-to-use information in a matter of seconds, directly from the point of sale.

It is no longer necessary to wait for days to find out if a promotion was correctly implemented or if a product is out of stock in certain stores. With Ailet's solution, teams have access to a constant stream of data about dozens of stores, with the accuracy and speed needed to anticipate problems.

Compliance with Promotions, Prices and Automated Audits

In retail, what is not controlled or measured, is not fulfilled. Ensuring that promotions and prices are implemented correctly at each point of sale is essential to avoid losses and improve the customer experience. However, manual processes often lead to errors, delays and lack of visibility.

With Ailet, it is possible to automate the verification of compliance in real time using image recognition and automated analysis, which allows:

Detect incorrect prices or misapplied promotions from the first visit.
Increase operational efficiency by reducing human errors.
Get immediate reports to make agile and effective decisions.
Empower the field team with accurate visual information, facilitating faster and more effective audits.

Thanks to this technology, brands can ensure flawless execution, optimize promotional campaigns and protect their margins.

Optimization of Decision Making

Having accurate and real-time data changes the logic of business management. It is no longer necessary to operate on assumptions or outdated information. Platforms like Ailet turn every action in a store into a series of data that feeds the commercial intelligence system.

This makes it possible to detect patterns, understand local behaviors and adjust decisions quickly. From redirecting promotional budgets to renegotiating terms with specific chains, access to reliable data empowers trade marketing managers to act quickly and based on real evidence, not just by intuition.

“Artificial intelligence applied to retail transforms every interaction in store into an opportunity to optimize results and maximize operational efficiency”.

Ailet and its Retail AI Proposal based on IR Technology

Since 2016, Ailet has transformed commercial execution for retailers and manufacturers in more than 30 countries. Its solution combines AI for retail and IR technology to offer total visibility into what is really happening in store, processing millions of SKUs with an accuracy of more than 95%.

Ailet turns captured images into actionable insights

The key to Ailet's success lies in its advanced ability to transform simple photographs taken at the point of sale into useful and actionable information. The platform uses AI algorithms to automatically analyze the arrangement of products, the presence of promotional materials and the prices displayed

With just a photo of the shelf, the system automatically detects every product, label, promotion or error, and generates a clear, visual and accurate report. This automation allows to scale audits on a massive level without increasing staff or time.

By having clear and real-time insights, brands can anticipate problems such as stock failures or non-compliance with promotions, adjusting their strategy to maximize visibility and sales.

Accuracy in planograms, promotions and stock

Ailet's solution is designed to ensure flawless execution at the point of sale. Thanks to the use of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision, it allows to achieve high levels of precision in the execution of planograms, promotions and stock control.

Our unique planogram execution tool allows in-store employees to quickly identify discrepancies with the expected layout. The system highlights misplaced products by grouping them by type of error (missing, excess fronts, incorrect location, etc.), and suggests in real time how to correct the display to meet brand standards.

The stock control is another fundamental pillar. Through the analysis of images, the platform automatically detects out-of-stock or misplaced products, alerting those responsible to act before the lack of availability affects sales. This precision in execution reduces losses and improves operational efficiency, raising the level of customer service and the profitability of the point of sale.

Key benefits:

Precise execution of planograms, promotions and prices.
Reduction of errors in store and greater stock availability.
Immediate correction of deviations at the point of sale.
Comprehensive compliance monitoring by store, product and area.
Improvement in conversion and sales growth thanks to an optimized display.

Up-to-date data on prices, promotions, stock breakdown and brand visibility

Ailet offers real-time information on current prices, ensuring that the brand remains competitive and avoids deviations that may negatively impact consumer perception or product profitability.

Likewise, the tracking of promotions allows validating that the campaigns are active and visible, while the early detection of stock outages facilitates timely replenishment.

The measurement of brand visibility on the shelves against the competition provides a clear vision to adjust the distribution and strengthen the commercial presence where it matters most.

Success Story: Multinational retail of +27,000 stores

One of the largest global retail chains, with more than 27,000 stores, faced challenges in compliance with planograms, availability and efficient auditing.

During the pilot phase, applied in only 20 stores and 500 SKUs, the results were overwhelming: compliance with the planogram went from 50% to 100%, and the stores registered a 1.0% increase in sales compared to stores that did not use the solution.

In addition, the time that the store teams spent organizing the shelves was reduced from one hour to just 15 minutes, thanks to the visual guidance and automatic instructions of the Ailet app.

As the project scaled to 1,000 stores and more than 20,000 SKUs, the indicators remained solid: stable planogram compliance between 85% and 90%, and sustained improvements in operational efficiency and sales.

The integration of Ailet with the retailer's inventory system made it possible to automate compliance analysis, detect execution errors and prevent stock failures with immediate corrective actions.

The next phase plans to include 27,000 stores with automated monitoring of prices, labels and competition. This case shows that when technology is aligned with processes and people, the results can be truly transformative.

Conclusion: AI as the engine of Moderna retail

The evolution of retail no longer depends only on better products or promotions, but on executing with precision, visibility and speed.

IR technology, powered by artificial intelligence, is redefining how brands manage in-store execution: from automated visual auditing to real-time data-driven decision-making.

Ailet shows that this transformation is not a theory, but a reality applied with concrete results. Brands that incorporate this type of solutions gain not only efficiency, but also competitive advantage in an increasingly demanding environment. In the era of smart retail, AI is not an option: it is the new standard for operating with excellence.

Ready to take the next step request a demo and discover how Ailet can automate your business operations at points of sale.