Editor's Synopsis
AI adoption in the APAC retail sector is moving beyond pilots and analytics into daily operational workflows, driven by dense urban stores, high labour churn, and competitive quick-commerce ecosystems. A Q4 2025 GlobalData survey found that 45 percent of consumers in Asia and Australasia are likely to purchase products based on AI recommendations. Key implementations include Lawson Go cashier-less stores in Japan using CloudPick computer vision, Fainders.AI's MicroStore in South Korea, and Coop Sapporo's Sora-cam system for shelf monitoring and food waste reduction.
Agentic AI is emerging as a significant capability in regional food retail, enabling customers to describe high-level goals — such as meal planning with dietary constraints and budget limits — rather than searching for individual items. These AI agents then generate recipes, build shopping carts, and size quantities automatically. GlobalData analyst Jaya Dandey notes that this aligns well with APAC household behaviors, where frequent cooking and fresh shopping are common, and digital wallets and delivery ecosystems are deeply integrated into daily life.
Despite the momentum, challenges remain around private data sharing consent, minimizing hallucinations related to allergens and ingredients, and ensuring proper localization with language nuance across the region's diverse markets. AI-driven labour optimization — including scheduling and workload balancing — is also proving valuable in Japan and South Korea, which face structural labour shortages, as well as in high-growth Southeast Asian markets where even small improvements in promotion efficiency can meaningfully boost margins.