What was once thought of as a figment of imagination – and the stuff of sci-fi movies – has now stepped into the business world: that’s right, we’re talking about Artificial Intelligence.

What started as a venture into technological advancements has led us to realise that Artificial Intelligence – or AI – has the ability to improve business standards, instead of creating a disruption.

And although this was an unpopular opinion among traditionalists, it has become increasingly clear that AI’s impact on point of sale cannot be overlooked anymore.

Perhaps the reason this is so is because consumers are no longer restricted – they are increasingly expecting more and more out of the retail experience. They want a frictionless customer journey where they have to do minimal effort, and we can’t blame them for that.

The reason AI stepped into the picture in the first place is because of how fast it can process large amounts of data, and how well it can create conclusions out of said data and make rudimentary decisions. With this process of machine learning, AI has successfully made activities as humane as decision-making more efficient.

AI And The Shopping Experience

AI has the potential to improve both real-world and online shopping journeys by making the journey more personalised and less time-consuming.

Technologies have been developed that log in customers’ purchasing behaviours, and produce advertisements that specifically cater to their needs. This removes the possibility that a customer has to view an ad they don’t care about, much like random billboards that people glance at, but never remember. Plus, customers appreciate the fact that their preferences are being understood by retailers.

AI has also broken through the checkout queue and introduced a wider, more innovative range of payment options; from contactless cards to mobile e-wallets, AI has allowed the checkout process to become faster and more feasible than ever before.

POS Analytics On Another Level

On a fundamental level, analytics are supposed to tell you only one side of the story: who your customers are and what do they prefer. But this data along cannot hope to improve work functions like sales, customer service, product and service modifications and marketing unless it’s integrated with predictive analytics.

This is where AI steps in; because of its integrative capabilities, it not only takes up all data recorded, but also creates predictive patterns out of it for your inference. That way, you can easily identify key areas of your business that need improvement or drastic changes. This kind of technology removes the issue of wrong inferences, because now it’s no longer a guessing game; your predictions will be quicker and more accurate than ever.

POS in Pakistan have begun introducing this technology to the point of sale – and Oscar POS has readily done so. With its Predictive Customer Journey graphs, you can better understand what is it that your customers want from your business.

This kind of targeted approach at handling a business can do wonders!

Handling Unstructured Data

With a business, comes the influx of data – and handling it can be tricky, especially for marketers. To create predictive patterns from actions as vague as a feedback on some social media post is not only time-consuming, but also susceptible to inaccuracies.

This problem can be completely removed with the help of AI, which can process large amounts of data from different places, with little to no human intervention. Machine learning then allows AI systems to create patterns for marketers, so that they can run more targeted, and successful campaigns. Smart Data Collective has attested to this, saying that real-time marketing has the potential to sky-rocket sales by 20% thanks to AI involvement.


Of course, we still have a long way to go before AI becomes fully mainstream, but it’s not an impossibility anymore. It’s the perfect example of how technology and human effort can work together to produce the best, most efficient results.