Shaping the Future of Retail: Accelerating Growth with 4 Big Bets in Our AI Strategy

By Anuj Dhanda, Chief Technology and Transformation Officer

The grocery industry is entering a new era, defined by intelligent automation, agentic commerce and AI tools that automate, eliminate and simplify routine work so teams can focus on higher-value innovation, smarter execution and time spent serving customers. At Albertsons Companies, we're not just participating in this transformation - we're leading it. Our AI strategy is bold, focused, delivering value today and set to scale in the future as we continue to deliver on our promise to earn Customers for Life.

We've made purposeful investments in technology and AI to strengthen our customer value proposition and accelerate enhancements in our customer experience online and in stores. These investments are already beginning to paying off, and as we enter fiscal year 2026, we're doubling down on four transformational "Big Bets" that will redefine how we serve customers, empower associates and operate with precision.

These Big Bets are one part of our AI strategy that includes embedding AI across the enterprise and enabling associates across our workforce to use the power of agentic AI and generative AI to do their best work. Our strategy also includes harnessing the power of our data platform. Across retail, companies are investing heavily in AI to improve efficiency, personalization and supply chain accuracy. Our AI strategy positions Albertsons Companies to compete and win in this rapidly shifting landscape.

The bottom line: we see our AI-powered solutions improving operations and enabling our people to make smarter, faster and more consistent decisions. We're helping them prioritize their time and talents on what matters most - our customers.

Here's how we're doing it.

We Were Among the First to the Cloud, Built for Scale

Albertsons Cos. was the first major grocer to completely move to the cloud, and today we operate on a modern cloud and unified data platform that enables us to accelerate AI across our enterprise. This foundation gives us speed, scalability and flexibility to embed AI into merchandising, supply chain, retail, enterprise operations and an omnichannel customer experience at scale.

We're Embedding AI across the Enterprise

No single AI solution can address the variety of needs across our business, from marketing, finance and communications roles, to supply chain, store operations and our omnichannel customer experience. That's where our enterprise governance group comes in, helping surface AI technology opportunities for teams in various functions and determining the best AI-enabled tools to deploy. It's one way we're embedding AI in high-priority areas across the enterprise.

Our Four Big Bets in AI at Albertsons Cos.

Our AI Big Bet #1: Digital Customer Experience

We're creating differentiated experiences that go beyond convenience - experiences that deepen loyalty and drive growth. Our AI-powered "Ask AI" search capability is already delivering a 10% increase in basket size for customers who have started to use it. And with Albertsons AI shopping assistant announced in December, we're helping customers execute complex end-to-end grocery tasks, from recipe to cart, in minutes. Our focus isn't just on making transactions simpler. Where can AI add real value? How about helping customers discover new products, plan meals and enjoy frictionless, personalized journeys. These capabilities deepen loyalty and increase customer value, as reflected in the 10% basket-size lift already observed.

Our AI Big Bet #2: Merchandising Intelligence

We believe AI-driven insights have the potential to transform category management. By equipping merchants with tools to optimize promotions, assortment and the decisions they make weekly, we will move from reactive to predictive merchandising intelligence for our teams. This is about precision, and accelerating decision cycles in a highly competitive environment using data to anticipate our customers' needs and deliver value for them more effectively and quickly.

Our AI Big Bet #3: Empowering Associates and Leaders

Our people are at the heart of our transformation. We're working to deploy generative AI to help leaders forecast labor needs and optimize scheduling, while conversational AI tools will empower associates to be more productive in their roles. We're also building new skills and training our people to use AI tools, as we announced in November with Microsoft's Enterprise Skilling Initiative. Deploying AI tools for our people isn't about replacing human judgment. It's about amplifying their role in making critical decisions, expanding the scope of impact that each associate can have on our business, and freeing up our people's time for what matters most: serving our customers

Our AI Big Bet #4: Optimizing Our End-to-End Supply Chain

From vendor to shelf, AI-driven demand forecasting and computer vision enable us to plan better and to track products with unprecedented accuracy. Improved forecasting helps us ensure product availability and reduces waste - both critical to our growth and margin management. These capabilities enable our people to improve fulfillment, quality and shelf availability of products, which are critical to delivering the fresh, fast, and reliable experience our customers expect in stores and online.

Albertsons Cos. Is Delivering Value Today, Leading the Future

To do all of this, we combine strategic partnerships with tech leaders including Google, OpenAI, Databricks and Microsoft (so far) with the strength of our Global Technology and AI team, which builds tailored solutions in-house. This dual approach allows us to prioritize and move quickly, meeting customers where they are with technology designed for them.

Our four Big Bets aren't pilots. These investments are part of a long-term technology roadmap we're delivering today, embedded in our enterprise transformation strategy where AI tools strengthen our business and our people. These initiatives are already driving measurable impact and will continue to scale as we accelerate our business strategy in 2026.