Ask any retailer where shrink is happening, and most will say the same thing: “everywhere.” From checkout to aisles to inventory discrepancies, shrink is increasingly complex—and so are the technologies built to fight it.
But as we continue developing AI tools to detect and proactively react to prevent loss in real time, there’s one foundational element that too often gets overlooked: the network.
On a recent podcast, I sat down with David Naumann, Global Retail Marketing Strategy Leader at Verizon, to talk about the growing role of
AI in shrink prevention and why a strong infrastructure is just as critical as smart software.
“AI can’t work without fast, reliable connectivity,” David explained. “Camera vision, real-time alerts, edge computing—all of these technologies rely on high bandwidth and low latency. If your network can’t keep up, your AI solution will fall short.”
It’s a point we see validated again and again in retail environments. From self-checkout lanes to store-wide camera systems, the effectiveness of real-time shrink detection depends not only on what the AI sees, but how quickly and accurately it can act on that data. That requires seamless communication between in-store devices and cloud-based platforms—something Verizon is helping enable through next-generation retail networking.
But infrastructure alone isn’t enough. During the episode, David and I also explored the importance of building AI into systems that support more than just loss prevention—
solutions that also drive operational efficiency and informed decision-making.
HANDEL
