TALKING POINT

Medium-sized retail companies have accelerated their Digital Transformation efforts to compete with e-commerce giants and meet consumer expectations. Loyalty apps, e-commerce platforms, chatbots, recommendation engines and automated support tools have multiplied rapidly across retail operations.

In 2022, a McKinsey survey revealed that 92 % of companies planned to increase their investment in artificial intelligence over the following three years. Since then, retail adoption has accelerated, driven by pressure to deliver faster and more personalised customer experiences. According to Grand View Research, the global AI market in retail reached US $ 11.61 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 23 % between 2025 and 2030.

In Colombia, e-commerce generated COP $ 145.4 billion in sales during 2025 and attracted 9.3 million digital buyers. For many retailers, the challenge is connecting channels, data and systems efficiently enough to deliver a seamless omnichannel experience.

However, the promise of integration often gives way to fragmented technology ecosystems. Some experts refer to this as the‘ Bot Zoo’, an environment crowded with AI tools operating in silos without effective coordination.

“ In a‘ Bot Zoo’ environment, for example, a company may not have real-time visibility of the information initiated by a customer from the app, because the systems do not share data with each other. As a result, when the customer arrives at a point of sale to place an order or a return, the process practically starts from scratch, which affects the omnichannel experience and brand perception,” said Gabriel Arango, Head of Technology for Latin America, GlobalLogic.

“ In addition, the idea persists that innovating involves replacing all legacy systems, a costly and high-risk gamble that few companies can afford. But modernising does not mean starting from scratch,” he said.

To address these challenges, some organisations are turning to intelligent orchestration models supported by agentic AI. Unlike traditional bots, intelligent agents can coordinate tasks across systems, understand context and execute actions autonomously.

Instead of replacing existing platforms, these models integrate systems, data, knowledge and workflows into a unified environment.“ For example, with solutions such as VelocityAI, GlobalLogic proposes an alternative to evolve fragmented architectures by integrating existing systems, cloud-native tools and intelligent agents within a single secure operating environment,” said Arango.

The orchestration-based approach reduces risk, preserves institutional knowledge and enables new capabilities without sacrificing control or compliance.“ Retailers can get the agility and flexibility of a modernisation built from the ground up, but without the disruption of replacing their entire technology infrastructure.”

Arango argues that competitive advantage is no longer created by accumulating more software or bots, but by developing connected, governed intelligence capable of acting in real time.

“ Therefore, in an environment where customer experience has become one of the main differentiators, the ability to orchestrate systems could be more important than the number of tools implemented,” he said. •

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