How AI-Enabled Tractor Supply Is Preparing Its IT Infrastructure for the Future
Tractor Supply Company isn’t waiting for the next tech shoe to drop; it’s looking ahead to establish a strong IT architecture that will support both today's and tomorrow’s leading advancements.
CGT spoke with Glenn Allison, VP of IT applications at Tractor Supply, who shared some of the meaningful use cases the company is focused on as the swirl of generative AI continues to envelop the retail and consumer goods industry.
AI at the Ready
Tractor Supply has gone all-in on artificial intelligence across the enterprise, using it to improve product availability with real-time inventory monitoring, provide live product recommendations, and support store associates with devices that allow them to help consumers as they shop.
Across much of the retailer's footprint, associates are now AI-enabled, giving them access to AI voice or natural language processing through their headsets to get back-of-house insights and training resources.
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Perhaps one of the most notable instances of evolving technology at the company comes from its Hey GURA assistant, first introduced in 2020 but newly transformed with generative AI capabilities that provide automated responses to store associate questions in a format similar to Amazon’s Alexa.
The company is also testing locations with TractorVision technology, which uses computer vision to monitor line buildups and provides associates with real-time AI notifications when assistance is needed — for example to fill a propane tank, call associates for help in the garden center, or provide riding mower support.
Heavy IT Reinforcement
A complex, multi-pronged AI system requires a solid IT infrastructure as its foundation. As part of this, Tractor has partnered with Microsoft and its Azure Cloud platform to house multiple data sources within a single technology architecture. Within it, the retailer has real-time availability to insights to help manage performance optimization and scale growth.
“We have point-of-sale, our supply chain, marketing analytics, and other kinds of external data integration — and all of that data is governed,” says Allison, who adds that within these systems, there are individual functionalities like predictive forecasting and omnichannel personalization.
Did You Know?
Allison is keynoting our upcoming Analytics Unite event this May! He will be co-presenting with Al Lettera, SVP of IT. Register today to learn more about the transformative power of AI-driven analytics and technology to gain deep customer insights, drive operational efficiencies, and enhance marketing effectiveness. Lettera and Allison will share how they're cultivating a culture of adaptability, innovation, and meeting escalating customer demands.
One of generative AI’s most controversial aspects, however, is its easily manipulated data pool; as a result, investment in data governance and educated data teams is a requirement for consumer goods organizations looking to implement the technology.
As part of this, Tractor Supply is building out cross-functional responsible use and content authenticity teams to maintain consumer and brand trust.
“They manage the governance, our data governance tools, [and] our data quality,” says Allison. The company also has a workforce group made up of machine learning engineers and app developers who are working day-to-day and some of the tools leveraging large language models (LLMs).
As an example, Tractor Supply’s AI team is consistently monitoring the actions of Hey GURA, giving the bots’ responses a quality score and determining whether data needs to be adjusted to improve accuracy and refine interactions.
Future-Ready Strategies
As Tractor Supply aims to attract tech talent and business partners who embrace work in the AI space, the retailer remains mindful of the tools needed to progress. The company provides technical training like Python, for example, as it continues to add data to train LLMs, and it makes that knowledge accessible to associates.
Its ecosystem of cloud storage and clean data standards enables the organization to formulate innovations across POS, supply chain, omnichannel, and more — providing real-time, scalable data to prepare for future growth and the foundation necessary for more tech implementations, says Allison.
“We're leveraging AI and being able to be meaningful,” he adds, noting that all of these efforts ultimately center upon the ability to provide strong customer experience.
"Everything we do from a technology standpoint is aligned with our Life Out Here strategy to deliver legendary customer service with our over 50,000 team members, whether that be through the mobile app, at TractorSupply.com, or in-store.”
