Initial Situation

The retailer had already proven AI's commercial potential through a series of proofs of concept and SaaS deployments across the business, but capability was maturing unevenly: tactical platforms and AI capabilities were developing in silos, with growing internal demand for a shared, group-wide platform.  

Leadership recognised that converting this early momentum into sustained commercial value required a step-change from tactical experimentation to a centralised, strategic approach to how AI is built, bought and governed.  

vector8 was selected to create an end-to-end AI strategy for the business, supporting their 1500 employees and 3 million annual customers.

Our Contribution

• Renewed the group's AI ambition by evaluating current AI capability against industry standards and identifying and prioritising high-value investment opportunities across the P&L.
• Partnered with the retailer's architecture and technology leadership to build the foundations of an enterprise AI technology strategy, outline requirements for the governance process and capability platform, design a target architecture, roadmap and governance model that carries the strategy from board-level sign-off through to execution.
• Mapped the existing AI estate end-to-end, giving leadership a single, complete view of AI capability across the business for the first time - surfacing where investment was duplicated, where technical standards had diverged, and where lost momentum could be recovered.
• Defined a target AI platform and operating model, establishing Enterprise AI Architecture disciplines and methodologies anchored on recognised industry frameworks, building organisational momentum while actively avoiding vendor lock-in and the accumulation of technical debt.
• Embedded AI considerations directly into the retailer’s existing governance forums, ensuring every request is triaged against the technology strategy and assessed against defined consumption-pattern guidelines.
• Established a structured decision framework applied to every investment: first, whether the right response is to remove the process, automate it, or apply AI; and where AI is the answer, whether to build, buy or tailor the solution.

Value Delivered

• The retailer’s technology decisions now rest on a single, shared understanding of how AI is consumed across the business, underpinned by a defined triage framework, target architecture and clear role ownership. Every platform decision is assessed against value, compliance and long-term sustainability criteria before investment proceeds.
• A centralised pipeline guides departments to exploit existing and strategic technology fully before any new platform is introduced into the environment, directly addressing the duplicated spend surfaced during the AI estate mapping.
• Governance now spans the full stack: technical standards are anchored in industry-recognised frameworks and explicitly connected to board-level risk appetite, closing the gap between architectural decisions and board assurance.
• The technology function now shapes AI demand at the source, with every initiative entering the pipeline carrying defined requirements and an articulated value proposition - replacing the previously fragmented, siloed pattern of AI adoption with a single, governed intake process.

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