What Can Other Industries Learn From Retail’s AI Transformation?

AIQ TALKS: Balaji Tiagrajan, Chief Product & Technology Officer, Flipkart and Mayank, Founder & CEO, ADROSONIC

Retail has become one of the most visible proving grounds for enterprise AI. Personalised recommendations, conversational commerce, demand forecasting and intelligent fulfilment are changing not only how consumers shop, but what they increasingly expect from every digital interaction.

In this episode of TOI AIQ Talks, Balaji Tiagrajan, Chief Product & Technology Officer, Flipkart, and Mayank, Founder & CEO, ADROSONIC, examine how AI is transforming retail at scale and what other industries can learn from that evolution.

Retail Is Resetting Customer Expectations

AI has made personalisation, conversational interfaces and faster service part of the retail experience. Consumers are beginning to carry those expectations into other sectors, including banking, healthcare and insurance.
For insurers, this could mean moving beyond transactional digital journeys towards experiences where customers can ask questions naturally, receive relevant recommendations and get faster support across processes such as claims and policy servicing.
The implication is broader than customer experience: industries now have to design around the expectations created by the most advanced digital experiences their customers encounter elsewhere.

AI Works Best When It Understands the Context

Flipkart’s use of AI across demand forecasting, assortment planning and delivery demonstrates how intelligence becomes more valuable when it is connected to business context. Its systems consider factors ranging from geography and demographics to purchasing behaviour and inventory.

Mayank’s perspective extends this principle across industries: successful AI adoption begins with identifying the problem and the outcome, then determining where AI can create value. This is particularly important in domains such as insurance, where industry terminology, regulations, workflows and risk considerations shape how AI can be applied.

Intelligence Needs Human Judgement

Scale also requires trust. Flipkart uses evaluation frameworks, controlled A/B testing, monitoring and human intervention to govern AI-driven decisions. As Balaji explains, autonomous systems still require controls that determine when human judgement should enter the process.
This balance is becoming increasingly relevant across regulated industries, where AI can accelerate decisions but accountability cannot simply be automated.

The conversation points to a clear lesson: the strongest AI strategies do not begin with the technology. They begin with the customer, the problem and the outcome, then build the intelligence, controls and human judgement around them.

About AIQ Talks

AIQ Talks, The Times of India’s thought leadership series, brings together business and industry leaders to examine the impact of AI across sectors. As the AI Knowledge Partner, ADROSONIC contributes to the series through conversations led by Mayank, Founder & CEO.