Dive Brief:
- Albertsons outlined four top AI priorities for fiscal 2026: the digital customer experience, merchandising, labor and supply chain, Anuj Dhanda, the company’s chief technology and transformation officer, wrote in a blog post.
- Dhanda said these four main areas aren’t pilots but rather investments in the company’s long-term technology roadmap. “These initiatives are already driving measurable impact and will continue to scale as we accelerate our business strategy in 2026,” he noted.
- Albertsons is looking to AI as a way to sharpen its differentiation in a rapidly evolving grocery landscape, Dhanda said.
Dive Insight:
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,” Dhanda wrote.
In announcing Albertsons’ AI priorities, Dhanda wrote that it was the first major grocer to move fully to the cloud and noted that the company’s operations on “a modern cloud and unified data platform” give it the scalability and flexibility to accelerate AI adoption across its business.
Dhanda also noted that Albertsons sees the need to employ a range of AI solutions to address different business needs. The grocery company is working with partners such as Google, OpenAI, Databricks and Microsoft as well as building in-house solutions with its Global Technology and AI team.
For the digital customer experience, Albertsons is focusing on AI that can “deepen loyalty and drive growth,” Dhanda wrote, pointing to the AI-powered Ask AI search capability, which has so far fueled a 10% increase in basket sizes for users, and the AI shopping assistant, which launched at the end of 2025 to help customers build baskets and shop recipe ingredients.
Albertsons is shifting from reactive to predictive merchandising intelligence by using AI-driven insights to optimize promotions and assortment as well as help make weekly decisions.
On the labor front, Dhanda said the grocer is using generative AI to forecast labor needs and improve scheduling. For workers, Albertsons is offering conversational AI tools to help with their productivity. Dhanda noted that Albertsons announced in November that it will offer AI-specific training, skills development and certifications through the Microsoft Enterprise Skilling Initiative.
For its supply chain, Albertsons is tapping AI to improve its demand forecasting, which will help improve product availability for customers and reduce waste, according to the blog post.
“[We] see our AI-powered solutions improving operations and enabling our people to make smarter, faster and more consistent decisions,” Dhanda wrote. “We’re helping them prioritize their time and talents on what matters most – our customers.”
