Accenture bets AI will ring up retail sales with Profitmind investment

Accenture is betting that the future of retail will run through AI with an investment in Profitmind, an agent-based platform that automates pricing decisions, inventory management, and planning. 

"Profitmind bridges the gap between insight and action through agentic AI," Accenture global retail lead Jill Standish said in a statement that announced Accenture's buy in. "It mirrors how retailers run their businesses, linking data from multiple sources for clear, prioritized recommendations that can be trusted and executed quickly in response to an increasingly competitive industry."

Neither party released the terms of the investment. Accenture Ventures, the company's venture capital arm that focuses on early stage startups in AI, provided the funding. 

"Profitmind brings a transformative technology that identifies and quantifies performance opportunities across a retail business," the startup's CEO Mark Chrystal told The Register via email. "Because AI is increasingly automating merchandising and pricing, you need a system ...