Key takeaways
Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation now touch every part of retail, from stock rooms to schedules to pricing.
Your biggest wins come from labor, including forecasting demand, building draft schedules, and supporting labor-law compliance workflows across locations.
Deputy customers Juice Press and UNTUCKit report reductions in labor spend or scheduling admin using Deputy tools, though results vary by business.
AI works best as an assistant that surfaces suggestions while your managers make the final call.
Artificial intelligence and automation in retail used to sound like a warehouse story. Now they touch the sales floor, the stock room, the schedule, and the price tag.
If you run hourly teams across several stores, you can feel the pressure. Labor costs keep climbing, and customers still expect fast, friendly service. Employers paid 80.3 million United States (US) workers hourly rates in 2024.
This guide walks through where these tools can help with costs, and how to keep your team in control. According to Deputy's Big Shift Report, 48% of US shift workers say their workplace already uses AI in some form.
Inventory management
If you manage inventory without the right tools, your team can spend hours entering data by hand, and errors can still slip through. Those mistakes get expensive fast.
Automating manual inventory tasks
AI-assisted tools can take repetitive work off your team and give you a clearer picture from sales history, customer trends, weather, and supplier records. That can reduce manual work and help you spot patterns sooner.
Forecasting demand to avoid overstock and stockouts
With that data, AI-assisted tools help you estimate demand and plan stock levels for review. Retailers like H&M use these methods to localize merchandise and cut back on markdowns. This can help reduce the amount of money tied up in excess stock, storage, and markdowns.
The same forecasts help you plan for seasonal peaks and one-off events. You can adjust orders store by store, so a busy downtown location doesn't carry the same stock as a quiet suburban one. The tool suggests the numbers, and you make the final call.
Labor demand forecasting
Labor is one of the biggest costs you carry. With wage floors rising in many states, overstaffing during quiet periods can put additional pressure on labor budgets.
How AI-assisted forecasting matches staff to customer demand
When you plan staff to match demand, you need to weigh year-over-year sales, recent trends, foot traffic, and more. AI-assisted forecasting can help you estimate staffing needs and manage staffing within your labor budget. The tools produce a forecast for manager review, not a fixed answer.
Labor forecasting is the part of retail that AI has changed most, according to the same Deputy report. Your managers can use these reports to plan staffing for busy days and help manage labor spend during slower periods.
Turning sales and foot-traffic data into staffing decisions
Store Owner Lance Stillwaugh runs two Ace Hardware stores in Colorado and now tracks payroll as a percentage of sales, keeping labor costs inside budget. You can use the same measure to spot whether your staffing is staying on plan.
Juice Press took a similar approach. By watching labor and sales trends together, they match staffing to demand across the day. Juice Press reports estimated front-of-house labor savings of over $200,000 a year using Deputy tools, though results vary by business.
Employee scheduling
Beyond helping control labor costs, AI-assisted scheduling software can help reduce the admin that eats into your week as a manager.
Building draft schedules in minutes for manager review
Auto-scheduling tools can help build a draft schedule using your staffing and scheduling settings, which you can review and adjust before publishing. You can also configure scheduling rules and warnings to support manager review of schedule changes, and set up pay rules to support payroll processing.
Giving retail staff shift flexibility and clear communication
Scheduling software also gives staff more say over their time. Employees can swap shifts or request time off from any device, and get updates in real time.
That flexibility can help support retention. It matters, because 60% of service-sector workers get less than two weeks' notice of their schedules, according to Harvard's Shift Project.
UNTUCKit reports reducing scheduling workload by 50% across 45 stores, which freed managers to focus on customers. About 75% of US shift workers say AI tools help them leave work on time, according to Deputy's Big Shift Report.
Staying on top of labor-law compliance across locations
If you run stores in multiple locations, you may need to account for labor-law requirements at the federal, state, and local levels. Those range from overtime and hour limits to meal and rest breaks. The rules multiply fast.
Tracking breaks, overtime, and premium pay
In California, for example, employers can owe premium pay when employees miss a required meal or rest break. Deputy's tools can support break tracking and employee confirmations. They can also flag potential overtime or premium pay for manager review.
These tools present the information for manager review, so your team stays in control. Software like this helps reduce compliance risk and can streamline your compliance workflows.
Keeping up with Fair Workweek rules in multiple cities
Fair Workweek laws vary by jurisdiction. They can include requirements relating to advance notice of schedules, schedule changes, predictability or premium pay, access to hours, rest between shifts, and recordkeeping.
The list of jurisdictions keeps growing. Los Angeles County's Fair Workweek Ordinance took effect on July 1, 2025, and other cities, such as Chicago, have their own fair workweek ordinances.
Tools that surface these rules for manager review can help support compliance workflows across applicable locations. Proper Cloth uses Deputy to support its compliance efforts as it grows. Dennis Novak, head of showrooms at Proper Cloth, says having the right setup in place gives their team peace of mind:
Deputy had the features we were looking for to support our New York operations. As we grow to other cities, it can also support configured workflows for different local labor requirements or nuances in those cities.
Dennis Novak, Head of Showrooms, Proper Cloth
Deputy supports compliance workflows but does not provide legal advice or guarantee compliance. Customers remain responsible for configuring the platform appropriately and complying with applicable laws and regulations.
