Introducing Realgram AI: 4 reasons we’re excited about the next era of AI planograms

There’s no denying the fact that AI had a far-reaching impact on the retail industry in 2024 — from evolving customer experience (CX) to optimizing supply chains to improving decision-making.

As a partner to retail leaders everywhere, we’ve been hard at work identifying and refining AI use cases for our customers as well. Last year alone, our company pushed forward a remarkable 150% increase in our AI and GenAI capabilities. This continuing evolution is powered by intentionally bringing on AI capabilities in key areas of the business like data, reporting, and execution tools.

As part of our focused effort to find more AI-powered retail opportunities, we’re proud to unveil Realgram AI, the industry’s first-ever AI planogram solution. Realgram AI enables store-specific visual merchandising, improving compliance, sustainability and performance at every location.

Why the intersection of merchandise planning and AI — and why now?

In talking with our customers and other retail leaders, we hear just how challenging it is to effectively plan and executive visual merchandising strategies.

All retail verticals — from apparel to CPG/grocery to consumer electronics and telco — face roadblocks when creating in-store experiences that resonate with shoppers and boost sales. We commonly hear about disconnects between HQ’s vision and store teams’ execution. This gap makes it difficult to craft store-specific planograms that are effective, easy to execute, and aligned with large-scale business goals. That’s not to mention barriers to managing in-store merchandising at the inventory level, as well as at scale across hundreds or thousands of stores on any given day.

With these recurrent challenges in mind, we made it our mission to leverage the immense real-time computing power of AI to improve merchandising planning strategies. Imagine if you could generate store-specific planograms customized by real-time inventory and capacity and aligned with your business goals, with just a single click. And what if that planogram could further your company’s sustainability commitments along the way?

Sounds too good to be true? Not anymore.

That’s the power of Realgram AI in action — and a major leap forward for visual merchandising. 

4 ways Realgram AI will revolutionize the retail industry in 2025

What excites us most about Realgram AI is its ability to redefine retail needs across a number of key areas, from operational efficiency to compliance to profitability.

Check out the these top four benefits for your company:

• Exceptional accuracy: Say goodbye to misaligned in-store displays and missed sales opportunities. Realgram AI lowers the operational complexity of your merchandising strategies by generating store-specific planograms that reflect real-time inventory records, store conditions, and operational needs. This improved reliability makes it easier than ever for your on-the-ground teams to properly execute merchandising plans day-in and day-out, boosting store compliance and facilitating more purchases.

• Strategic merchandising: Take the hassle out of aligning every store’s merchandising strategy with your business objectives. Realgram AI optimizes each planogram you create to maximize profit, increase sell-through, and reduce markdowns.

• Effortless scalability: Realgram AI empowers retail HQ to quickly craft and deliver individualized planograms to hundreds or thousands of stores. This ease of scalability lays the foundation for every store to receive real-time, location-specific plans for their merchandising strategies — without sacrificing cohesion with your company’s broader business and sales objectives.

• Advanced data capabilities: Pair Realgram AI with our existing advanced Precision Merchandising capabilities to better inform your future merchandise planning and allocation strategies. Unprecedented visibility into store performance means you can better connect your sales results with store, zone, and fixture data. Other advanced features like Automated Photo Compliance (APC) and real-time updates for billing, shipments, and employee feedback further improve the sophistication and effectiveness of your forecasting and planning efforts.

A spotlight on sustainability 

Another key benefit of Realgram AI that we’re extremely excited about is the potential for improved sustainability.

We know sustainability is growing in importance among retailers and consumers alike. Becoming more environmentally sustainable was a top-five priority for retailers last year — driven in part by rising consumer interest in purchasing from the retailers most committed to sustainability improvements. Retailers looking for more opportunities to showcase their environmental stewardship in the year ahead can’t overlook the positive impact of strategic merchandising improvements.

With traditional planogramming, sustainability efforts often falter as inventory inconsistencies lead to overproduction and unexpected waste. Realgram AI addresses this problem by dynamically allocating only what an individual store needs and can accommodate at a given time, which reduces overallocation and waste.

This smarter, AI-powered merchandising approach ensures each of your planograms is tailored to a store’s inventory, capacity, and demand. Your business gains multiple tools to reduce its environmental footprint — from optimizing inventory usage and avoiding surplus products to lowering shipping and production emissions before products ever reach stores.

It’s a win-win. With AI in your toolkit, your company can improve the effectiveness and sophistication of its merchandising strategies while also pushing forward important sustainability goals.

Embrace the transformative power of AI planograms

The year ahead will be full of surprises for retailers. But one surprise you shouldn't have to worry about is missing inventory undermining your biggest and best visual merchandising strategies. And thanks to Realgram AI, you don’t have to worry.

It’s time to take planogramming to the next level — so you can focus on boosting sales, driving operational efficiency, and furthering your sustainability goals.