Technology roadmap of AI applications in the retail industry

New retail, an online-merge-offline system with artificial intelligence (AI) applications, became popular after the COVID-19 pandemic. This research introduces a novel technology roadmap methodology for new retail after studying 30 smart retail cases. Upon conducting panel discussions, this study identified 16 service applications, 10 technology applications, 4 application types, and 4 AI development stages. Based on the correlation analysis, it was found that new retail should: (1) aim towards the fourth stage of AI development, such as image generation technology; (2) develop a seamless shopping process; and (3) formulate cloud integration platforms integrating data on consumer shopping behavior. Overall, the findings obtained could be promising reference for future studies in the retail industry.