Why Smaller, Smarter AI Models are Giving Retailers an Edge

Why Retail’s Agentic AI Future Belongs to Smaller, Domain-Trained Models

Retail TouchPoints published an executive viewpoint by Arun Kumar, Global Head of Product and Industry Practice at Altimetrik, titled “Why Smaller, Smarter AI Models Are Giving Retailers an Edge.”

In the article, Arun explains that while agentic AI adoption is accelerating across retail, large language models often fall short in environments driven by structured product, pricing, and operational data. He highlights how SLMs trained on a retailer’s own catalogs, hierarchies, policies, and loyalty data deliver greater accuracy, reduce hallucinations, and enable reliable decision-making across marketing, ecommerce, customer support, and in-store operations.

Arun outlines a practical approach to building retail-specific models, emphasizing that competitive advantage comes not from the biggest AI model, but from the most relevant one trained to reflect how the business actually operates.