Tencent Smart Retail, the smart retail service under Tencent Cloud, and Decathlon China, a global multi-sport, multi-specialist company, are collaborating to explore innovative applications of digital and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies across retail operations, including consumer engagement, employee collaboration, business decision-making and store management.
Both parties are focusing on key areas including consumer services, business decision support and employee productivity enhancement, exploring how AI can be more deeply integrated into retail operations to help enterprises improve efficiency and deliver better consumer experiences.
Advancing Digital Innovation Through AI-Powered Retail Applications
As a global multi-sport, multi-specialist company, Decathlon has long been committed to the Chinese mainland market and continues to advance digital innovation around evolving consumer needs. Through multiple touchpoints including physical stores, e-commerce platforms, membership programs and sports communities, the company continues to strengthen engagement with consumers. For Decathlon, digital transformation is not only a technology upgrade, but also an important initiative to enhance consumer experiences and improve operational efficiency.
Xiao Lu, Executive Vice President of Decathlon China, said: “The rapidly evolving digital ecosystem in the Chinese Mainland, coupled with rising consumer expectations for service experiences, is driving enterprises to continuously strengthen their digital capabilities. At the same time, AI is becoming an important driver of operational efficiency, deeper business insights and enhanced consumer experiences.”
He highlighted three key areas where Decathlon is advancing AI adoption. The first is consumer experience, where the company seeks to leverage AI to engage consumers more effectively and enable more accurate matching of products, inventory and service information, further enhancing service quality. The second is business decision-making, where AI helps teams process and analyze information more efficiently, identify market trends and provide stronger support for business decisions. The third focuses on employee productivity, with AI assistants helping employees retrieve and consolidate information and generate meeting summaries, allowing teams to focus more on serving consumers and supporting business growth.
To further advance digital innovation, Decathlon aims to collaborate with partners that possess strengths in local digital ecosystems, retail expertise and AI capabilities, helping drive deeper integration between AI and retail operations in the Chinese Mainland. Guided by a shared commitment to digital innovation and consumer value creation, Decathlon and Tencent Smart Retail continue to deepen their collaboration to explore innovative AI applications across retail scenarios.
Xiao Lu added that Tencent’s deep understanding of China’s digital ecosystem, together with the synergies among WeCom, the WeChat ecosystem and Tencent Cloud, has laid a strong foundation for the continued development of the partnership. By connecting employee collaboration, consumer engagement and business operations, both parties are jointly exploring more efficient digital operating models.
Leveraging a digital ecosystem built around WeCom, the WeChat ecosystem, Mini Program stores, Tencent Cloud and AI technologies, Tencent continues to expand its portfolio of AI products and solutions across productivity enhancement, data intelligence, creative design and software development. Through AI offerings including WorkBuddy, CodeBuddy, DataBuddy, Ardot and Miora, Tencent helps enterprises improve operational efficiency and make better use of knowledge and data resources. These capabilities are increasingly being applied across workplace collaboration, data analytics, content creation and software development, providing strong support as both parties explore the integration of AI into retail operations.
Accelerating Retail Innovation Through AI and Digital Capabilities
Speaking about the collaboration, Xiao Lu said: “For Decathlon, both digital transformation and AI adoption are ultimately about serving consumers better. Through our continued collaboration with Tencent Smart Retail, we seek to harness technology not only to enhance employee productivity and strengthen team collaboration, but also to deepen our understanding of consumer needs and continuously improve the consumer experience. Looking ahead, we will further expand the application of AI across consumer services, employee collaboration and operational management, driving innovation throughout the business and delivering greater value to consumers.”
He further noted that throughout the collaboration, both parties have remained focused on business needs, validating AI applications in practical business scenarios before gradually expanding them to additional areas of the business. This value-driven and pragmatic collaborative model has enabled more effective integration of digital capabilities into day-to-day operations, providing a solid foundation for ongoing digital innovation.
Terry Li, Vertical General Manager of Tencent Smart Retail, said: “The retail industry is rapidly entering a new era of intelligent development powered by data and AI. As consumer journeys and purchasing behaviors continue to evolve, enterprises need more effective ways to engage consumers, improve operational efficiency and unlock the value of data. We are delighted to work with Decathlon China to explore innovative AI applications across retail scenarios. Moving forward, Tencent Smart Retail will continue to build on its strengths in cloud, AI, data and ecosystem capabilities to help enterprises transform innovation into tangible business value, enhance consumer experiences and support the highquality development of the retail industry.”
As Tencent’s dedicated digital service platform for the retail industry, Tencent Smart Retail continues to integrate Tencent’s capabilities in digital ecosystems, enterprise services and artificial intelligence, helping enterprises build stronger consumer engagement, more efficient operations and stronger decisionmaking capabilities to accelerate digital and intelligent transformation. To date, Tencent Smart Retail has established strategic partnerships with more than 600 brands and retail enterprises across over 30 retail segments and has partnered with leading domestic and international brands to explore digital innovation and AI applications, helping shape new models for retail innovation.
